


Intimacy Versus Isolation

by ChasingRabbits



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Depressed Bucky Barnes, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Pierced Bucky Barnes, Tattoo Artist Steve Rogers, Tattooed Bucky Barnes, Tattooed Steve Rogers, Trans Bruce Banner, Trans Pepper Potts, active-ish bucky/clint, background bucky/clint, background bucky/everyone pretty much, kidfic crack, like really fucking oblivious, the most oblivious, what you wouldn't just keep a baby you found on your doorstep?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 19:19:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 45,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9286187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasingRabbits/pseuds/ChasingRabbits
Summary: Intimacy is characterized by one's ability to be close to people, whether that's as a lover or a friend, even a coworker or a neighbor.  To manifest fully, intimacy requires a strong sense of oneself.Bucky Barnes is Steve Rogers' best friend. Bucky Barnes moved to California opened up a successful tattoo and piercing parlor with Steve Rogers. Bucky Barnes is also madly, hopelessly, deep in the ditches of unrequited love with (you guessed it) Steve Rogers. There isn't a part of Bucky's life that doesn't have Steve Rogers in it, and that's fine by him.And then Bucky comes home one night only to find that there's another part of himself, one that's sitting on his doorstep, one that Steve had absolutely nothing to do with.Bucky Barnes is someone's father.





	1. Chapter 1

Had Bucky Barnes expected to end up in California? Not at all. His most distant relatives lived in Toledo, for crying out loud. On both his ma and dad’s sides, they were Eastern Standard Time folks all the way.

He didn’t have grades to go to an out of state college, that was for fucking sure. Hell, Bucky stopped going to school the day he turned eighteen. Why go to school when he could get a job? While the rest of his peers were worried about graduation and college, Bucky earned a paycheck as an apprentice piercer at a local tattoo shop.

So, good family, good money, and eighteen years of calling Brooklyn home, what in the hell could get Bucky Barnes to run three thousand miles across the country?

Steve fucking Rogers.

Why else would Bucky ever do anything?

See, Steve had been an artist since he could hold a crayon. There wasn’t a spare moment he spent as a kid that hadn’t centered around honing his drawing skills (or attempting to fight the entire school with one skinny wrist tied behind his back, but that was a different story). By the time Steve was sixteen, he’d produced the most beautiful photorealistic drawings Bucky had ever seen. He’d taught himself how to animate on the computer, and as part of his application to CalArts had submitted an animated piece that had mimicked the Disney style to a terrifying degree of accuracy.

They accepted him, because of course they did.

The memory sat engraved in his mind’s eye, the day Steve told him he was leaving. Not nearly as small as he’d once been, Steve had looked at Bucky with those earnest blue eyes and told him,  _ “I’ll be okay on my own, y’know.” _

Like a distant echo, Bucky could still hear himself say,  _ “Yeah, I know you will _ .”

Bucky knew what that sickness in his gut had been; he knew it then and he knew it now. The feeling had been with him since sometime in their sophomore year of high school and it remained an unwelcome squatter to this very day.

Bucky  _ loved _ Steve. Not even in the romantic way, necessarily, or even sexually (though let’s face it, who wouldn’t fantasize about getting railed by Steve Rogers?), but in its total, complete, and highest form. Bucky would take Steve any way he could get him, even if it meant countless sexually frustrated nights with partners who were little more to him than warm and willing.

So, Bucky followed Steve, because even if Steve absolutely would’ve been okay without him (and he really would have been), that didn’t mean that Bucky would be okay without Steve.

But when Steve ragged on him that very first night in California, Bucky played dumb.

_ “Couldn’t let you have all the fun, now could I?” _

The alarm on Bucky’s phone blasted him into consciousness.

“Holy fuck,” he muttered to himself, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with one hand and patting for his phone with the other.  He sucked in a breath, then finally realized his phone had fallen onto the worn brown carpet below. Great.

Today was gonna suck, wasn’t it?

At twenty-seven, Bucky hadn’t expected to have his life totally together, but he had expected he’d be able to deal with waking up for work. Instead he went about his morning routine on his grumpiest setting, slamming cupboards in the poorly-lit kitchen of his studio apartment in North Hollywood.

Crinkling plastic bounced around in Bucky’s ears as he retrieved his coffee filters; popping the lid off his can of pre-ground store brand coffee echoed like a shout off a canyon wall; the coffee maker gurgled, then started spouting into the pot below.

Caffeinated, the morning moved a little more quickly. Bucky could actually put on pants and a clean(ish) shirt without being too pissed off about being awake. He grabbed his stuff, locked his apartment, and headed to work.

He missed Brooklyn, he always would, but there was some kind of eerie magic that came with walking through the hazy, palm-street studded streets of North Hollywood at ass o’clock in the morning. So few souls were out and about this time of day, leaving Bucky very briefly to feel like the last wanderer on earth.

Then the familiar sound of a motorcycle hit his ears, followed by the form of a very handsome man riding the behemoth (also familiar) zipping by.

Bucky shook his head and kept walking, following the same path of the motorcycle until he reached his destination.

_ Brooklyn Boys _ was probably the closest Bucky would ever come to having Steve’s lovechild. They’d opened their doors almost four years prior, after Steve had come in first place on a televised tattooing competition. It had been surreal to watch Steve, then barely twenty-four years old, on TV that year, even more surreal than it had been to putter around Los Angeles alone for months preceding, while Steve had been off filming.

He’d declared during a talking head blurb that, should he be fortunate enough, he would use his winnings to  _ “finally open up my own shop with my partner, Bucky.” _

Bucky still watched that clip sometimes if he was feeling a little down on himself, because something about the ghost of the smile on that asshole’s face and the way he said ‘partner’ made Bucky’s insides go warm.

Even if Steve had only meant ‘business partner’.

Bucky entered the modest-sized shop on the tail end of a yawn, already prepared to kill another pot of coffee to get through the rest of the day. The gray of the morning had barely broken through the front windows, leaving the shop draped in shadow. Bucky headed back to the staff kitchen, navigating seamlessly through the spaces between tattoo chairs until he reached his destination. Sure enough, there was already a pot of coffee brewing.

“Oh, fuck yes, come to daddy,” Bucky praised.

He reached for a cup, only to visibly startle when a voice uttered behind him, “I don’t wanna kink shame you in your own shop, but I’m gonna go ahead and kink shame you in your own shop.”

“Christ, Steve,” Bucky sighed, hand clapped over his heart, “You scared the shit outta me.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Steve said, plush lips quirked up in a grin that made Bucky’s insides go runny.

No longer the sickly wisp of a boy Bucky had befriended in sixth grade, Steve stood significantly taller and broader than he had in Brooklyn. Mostly this was due to Steve’s health paranoia, which kept him running at least 5k every day and made him eat more healthfully than the average guy their age.

And, of course, for an artist like Steve, a bigger body meant a bigger canvas.

His entire left arm was what Bucky called “Ode to Brooklyn”, which featured the Brooklyn bridge feeding into the Brooklyn skyline, and above his elbow, a massive silhouette of the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island. His other arm was more of a mishmash, with subjects ranging from Irish flags and Celtic knots to the Los Angeles Skyline to the Gryffindor crest and the Serenity.

In short: the body had changed, but the dorky kid from Brooklyn it housed had not.

Bringing Bucky back to himself, Steve indicated the coffee pot, “That’s why you sleep for shit, you know.”

“Oh no,” Bucky shook his head and turned back to the counter. “No no, I’m not engaging with you before I recaffeinate.”

“Here he is,” Steve continued in his best Attenborough, “A nocturnal creature of habit, the elusive North American Bucky cringes under the harsh light of day.”

“Steve, whoever told you you’re funny is a fucking liar,” Bucky shot back.

Steve cocked an eyebrow, “Uh, you?” 

“Exactly,” Bucky yawned and poured himself a generous cup of coffee. Rather than wait for it to cool, Bucky decided he’d make a point by gulping down the scalding liquid. Whatever, he’d deal with the burns; he’d have to give up a favorite hobby of his for the next few nights, but he was just petty enough not to care.

Steve, through his shit-eating grin, asked, “How’s that going for you?” 

Bucky flipped him off.

“You’re a bad, bad man,” he said.

Steve shrugged, “Word on the street is you’re into that kind of thing.”

“Steve, the shit I’m into would keep you awake at night.”

“Eugh, workplace guys, c’mon.”

Bruce Banner was the very first employee Bucky and Steve hired. Neither piercer nor artist, Bruce’s talents resided in operations. They probably could have run the business side of things on their own--between the two of them, Bucky and Steve were pretty capable--but why do that when someone like Bruce could come in and run things for them?

“Yeah,  _ Bucky _ ,” Steve stuck out his tongue.

Bucky threw a coffee creamer at him.

Bruce heaved a world-weary sigh and shouldered his way past Steve, toward the fridge. Unlike the rest of their employees, Bruce had no visible tattoos or piercings. The only reason Bucky even knew Bruce had a tattoo was because he’d watched Steve ink it into his skin in the first place. A tree, black-and-white and bare of all leaves, grew up and branched over the skin on his side, his ribs, and over the puckered twin scars running just below his nipples.

Indeed, Steve had become somewhat well-known in the tattoo community for his uncanny ability to cover scar tissue. Bucky was one of the lucky people who knew this firsthand. Steve had initially learned after a mother of three had come in to get her caesarian scar covered up, and had perfected his techniques on none other than Bucky himself.

Bucky glanced down at his left arm, decade-old scar tissue hidden under impossibly intricate biomechanical art.

The accident hadn’t been anyone’s fault, really, just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but try telling Steve that. Bucky remembered waking up in the hospital, Steve curled up in the chair beside his bed, red in the face from crying so hard and looking smaller than he had in years.

It had been a patch of black ice, and the way they’d hit it had sent Steve flying off of the bike and left Bucky pinned by the arm underneath it. Either of them could’ve died, but Steve didn’t care about what could’ve happened, only what did. Bucky’s left arm was crushed and torn up and it was, in his mind, all because of him.

“Bucky!”

Steve’s fingers snapped in front of his face, bringing Bucky back to himself.

“Yeah, what’s up,” Bucky said. Somehow he’d made it all the way back to his piercing station while lost in outer space.

“Man, you’re a million miles away today,” Steve observed. “Everything okay?”

Bucky heaved a sigh and shrugged. “Just one of those mornings, y’know?”

Steve gave a knowing nod.

“Plus, I haven’t gotten laid in forever,” Bucky added, hoping more than anything to steer the conversation away from addressing just one of his innumerable flaws. He told Steve, “Two… maybe three days? One hell of a dry spell, I tell ya what.”

Steve wrinkled his nose. 

“What?” Bucky grinned back. “TMI? I’ve told you worse.”

“Not that so much as I’m dumbfounded by what you consider to be a dry spell,” Steve told him. “Though, to be fair, you’re talking to someone whose last sexual encounter came before the New Year.”

Bucky nearly dropped his coffee onto the linoleum floor beneath their feet.

“Oh,  _ Steve _ ,” he clutched his chest with his free hand. “How the fuck is that even possible?”

“Uh, I’m not an insatiable sex fiend is how,” Steve replied and leaned up against the counter behind Bucky’s piercing chair.

“That’s three months, Steve,” Bucky just gaped.

“I know, I can count.”

“And no one’s hopped up on that dick?” Bucky’s eyebrows went flying up. “God, that’s just… sad.”

“Again, I refer you back to me not being an insatiable sex fiend,” said Steve.

“At least tell me you’re rubbin’ one out on the reg,” Bucky continued. “You didn’t do some dumbass shit and give up sex for Lent again, did you?”

“Lent ended like a week ago, and you know what,” Steve shoved his hands up into the air, “I’m done talking about this. I have a client coming in soon, so--”

“Make sure you keep the vibrating machinery away from your crotch,” Bucky smirked. “Don’t want a spontaneous paint job on the inside of your shorts.”

“You’re a little shit, y’know that?”

Bucky watched as Steve pivoted and stalked back to his own station. It was either joke about Steve’s lackluster sex life or tell Steve in great detail exactly how he could help Steve relieve some of that tension in his shoulders. As long and as intimately as he’d known Steve, there was no telling what his reaction would be to Bucky inviting him to fuck his face until his limbs went boneless and his mind went blank.

Not that Bucky had thought about this, ever. 

Still, with incredibly graphic thoughts racing through his mind, the morning soldiered on. The shop opened and soon a variety of colorful characters began to drift through. Steve’s clients were always the early birds, the people who came in to get inked before they had to get to work. Peggy took women almost exclusively, usually decorating them with her signature pinups, while Natasha worked entirely in black and gray, creating photorealistic animals that often put Steve’s to shame. Then there was Thor, whose new school space alien designs and near flawless Celtic knot work kept all manner of weirdos in his chair.

And Bucky and Clint? They stood by, waiting for any and all who came through their doors for a piercing. Any body part, any time of day, as long as the person was sober (drunk people moved around too much), Clint and Bucky would pierce. Like Bucky, Clint had a staggering accuracy when it came to placing a piercing just right.

“Never miss a shot,” Clint said, blasting a pair of gloved finger guns at Bucky. The little girl, no older than three, sitting in Clint’s piercing chair clung to her teddy bear with one hand and her mother’s arm with the other. Her earlobes, while irritated by the site of the intrusion, otherwise looked more or less like nobody had touched them at all. She sniffled, but no longer cried. Clint turned to her and threw his hands in the air, “You did it!”

The little girl smiled.

“You were so brave,” Clint told her as he reached toward the cabinet at his station. He pulled out a clear plastic tub filled with dollar section goodies and presented them to her. “Only the bravest warriors get to pick a treat from the prize box.”

The little girl’s eyes went wide as they took in what had been set before her. She stuck her little fist in the tub and fished with absolutely zero finesse, until she found a glittery plastic ring.

“Good choice,” Clint affirmed, then turned to the little girl’s mother. “I’ll get you the care kit and walk you through the steps. Then we can ring you up and get you ladies on your way.”

The mother smiled too, and added, “Thank you so much. I’ve been reading up on it and those piercing guns are just—“

“The worst?” Clint supplied, then nodded. “Yeah, never use the piercing guns if you can help it, especially with little kids. Infection runs rampant with those things, man. Not good.”

He stripped off his gloves and tossed them in the trash can beside his chair, then walked to the back room to retrieve a piercing care kit. Bucky followed close behind.

“I ever tell you you’re the best?” he asked.

“You could stand to mention it a little more,” Clint shrugged. “Why?”

“Because piercing kids is a nightmare,” Bucky whispered.

“What?” Clint let out a laugh. 

“All the crying, man,” Bucky shook his head. “I can’t do it.” 

“Dude, you’re stabbing ‘em with a needle, they’re scared,” Clint raised an eyebrow. “All you gotta do is just let ‘em know it’ll hurt and all, but that everything’s ultimately gonna be okay.”

“I know  _ that _ ,” Bucky insisted on the end of an eye roll. “I was trying to compliment you, you jag.”

“Oh my stars,” Clint then fanned himself with his hand, “You certainly know how to make a lady blush, Mr. Barnes.”

“Shut up,” Bucky shoved into him with his shoulder, unable to keep his smile at bay. Though seven years Bucky’s senior, Clint had a boyish charm about him. Not in the adorable, gut-fluttering ‘I’ve-ever-done-anything-wrong’ kind of way, like Steve’s charm… more like, Clint had the charm of a kid who would fall into a creek while trying to catch a frog and then bring said frog back home in a shoebox . 

“Ha-ha,” Clint grinned, “You love me.”

Bucky looped an arm around Clint’s shoulders and kissed him right on the cheek, then followed him back out into the front room. He strolled with all the confidence of a guy doing pretty well for himself (thank you very much), right up to the front desk to check the appointment book for the day. 

And then he saw the guy in Thor’s chair at the far end of the shop and immediately took a dive behind the desk, scrambling until he was curled up tight in the nook beneath with a familiar sight before him. 

Darcy had been with Steve and Bucky since they’d been financially sound enough to have a receptionist. The gal had a figure that could make a guy weep, that was for sure, but that wasn’t what Bucky had first noticed about her. 

… okay, that was a total lie, that was definitely the first thing Bucky had noticed (you couldn’t  _ not _ ), but that really wasn’t why he and Steve gave her the job. She had asked to take a look at their appointment book, just to get an idea of their organization (or lack thereof), when the phone started ringing. Bucky had tried to answer it, but Darcy had just shoved the book back into his hands and picked up the call  like it was nothing.

_ “ _ Brooklyn Boys _ , this is Darcy. What can I do for you today?... Well, he’s booked through the end of the week, but it looks like there’s an opening on Monday at 11:30, can I put you down for then?” _

She’d snapped her fingers at Bucky for the book and it had been a done deal. They hired her right there, and she’d been their sassy, sexy gatekeeper ever since.

“Enjoying the view there, boss man?” Darcy asked, spreading her legs so Bucky could see right up her skirt. 

“It’s great,” Bucky told her, “You’ve done some landscaping since I was here last, I see.”

Come  _ on _ , like they weren’t going to have sex at some point.

Darcy ducked to look Bucky in the eye, the light just above her desk glinting off the color on her lips, and said, “I’m having a guest over tonight.” 

Bucky raised an eyebrow, “And what the hell am I, exactly?”

“Well, my boss, for starters,” Darcy pointed out, “And you know how there are some people you invite over and you clean up before they get there so they don’t see you living in squalor like the piece of shit that you are?” 

“Mmhmm,” Bucky nodded, “So far, so good.”

“And then there are the people you invite over any time no matter what because you know they won’t care,” Darcy explained. “That’s you.” 

“I’m--” Bucky paused, frowning, “I’m not sure how I feel about that, actually.”

“It’s true,” Darcy shrugged. “You got low standards, my guy. Nothing to be ashamed of… someone has to.” 

“That’s awful high and mighty for someone who’s begged me to come on her tits,” Bucky challenged, his stomach knotting up a little at the accusation, and Darcy let out a laugh.

“You’ve come on my tits, I can say whatever the fuck I want,” she slid down out of her chair and crouched in front of Bucky before dropping her voice. “Now tell me who you’re hiding from.”

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut. Talk about knots in his stomach… 

“Thor’s client,” he whispered.  

Darcy gophered up for a few seconds, then popped back down. He knew what she saw, a nicely muscled guy with dirty blonde hair and an honest, ‘never-been-fucked’ kind of face (which, if you knew what he asked for in bed, would make you laugh your ass off).

The fact that he bore a striking resemblance to the man tattooing a couple stations over had nothing to do with anything. 

Still hushed, Darcy admonished,  “How are you not up on that twenty-five/eight?” 

“He was nice enough,” Bucky shrugged. “Just wasn’t into him.”

That was Bucky’s excuse with most everyone he slept with. Granted, it was difficult to be into somebody when you were already giving one hundred percent to being into someone else. Nobody was like Steve, therefore nobody deserved to be loved like Steve… even if Bucky couldn’t love Steve in all the ways he wanted to. 

“And that’s why you’re hiding,” Darcy quirked an eyebrow, stating more than asking.

Bucky sighed and dropped his head, “I may or may not have told him I had to book it because I had a funeral to go to.” 

“Ooh,” Darcy winced. 

“Yeah,” Bucky buried his face in his hands. “When he asked who died I  _ may _ have panicked and said my mom.”

“Dude!” Darcy reached out a hand to smack him upside the head, but succeeded only in bumping her hand on the underside of the desk. “Your mom lives in Studio City.”

“I know,” Bucky muttered. 

“I’ve met her,” Darcy said. 

“I  _ know _ ,” Bucky snipped back. 

“That’s breaking the Jewish Child Code of Ethics,” she tried to smack him again, somehow less successfully. “And Ethical Ethics, I’m pretty sure. Is that a thing?” 

“Who the fuck knows,” Bucky rubbed his temples, “You wanna ask the morality watchdog of this place, ask Steve.”

“True,” Darcy gave a thoughtful nod, then heaved a sigh, “Catholics, man. Always trying to repent for their sins and shit.”

“Right?” Bucky’s fingers migrated to his eyes, rubbing the tension from there too. “Just sin and take your punishment on earth like the rest of us.”

“Amen to that, my friend.”

The telephone then blared its automated tune and Darcy sighed, “Duty calls” and slid back up into her chair.  Bucky vaguely registered, “ _ Brooklyn Boys, _ this is Darcy” before he crawled out from under her desk and righted himself, wincing at the crick he now had in his back. 

Clint stood behind the jewelry counter, ringing up the mother and daughter at one of the registers.  Unlike Darcy, Bucky’s attraction to Clint had been much slower to build. Being attracted to women was easier, sleeping with women was easier; with dudes, historically Bucky had a tendency to clam up, to second guess himself and jump ship as soon as possible. 

He also happened to have a thing for blond guys with nice biceps.

“Hey, you okay?”

Clint stood in front of him now, a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and thumb stroking circles over his collar bone. 

“Yeah,” Bucky shook himself out of it, explaining, “Spaced out.”

“Really?” Clint’s eyebrows went up. “Because you’re looking at me like I just asked you to go ice fishing.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed, and he asked, “‘the hell does that mean?”

Clint shrugged, “Who knows with me. I just say shit sometimes.”

It was a self-deprecating dig meant to make him feel better, but instead it just made Bucky’s stomach sink. 

Clint took another moment, this time to follow Bucky’s line of sight-- _ shit _ \--right to Steve, and gave a knowing nod. Yes, back when they’d first started sleeping together, Clint had figured out pretty quickly that Bucky’s heart beat the very hardest for Steve Rogers. Bucky had expected derision, or at the very least a good razzing before Clint told him they couldn’t sleep together again, but Clint had just snuggled him closer, bodies sticky from one of their frenetic escapades that had only ended minutes before, and told Bucky very simply:

_ “Being in love sucks.”  _

Which brought them to where they were today: friends, semi-frequent sexual partners, but not lovers, not even anything in between. Nothing came close to describing what Clint was to Bucky, and it was likely that nothing ever would. 

“Hey, you know if you’re not feeling well you’re allowed to go home, right?” Clint asked. “Isn’t that the beauty of being your own boss? Other than sleeping with your attractive employees, of course.”

“That’s not why you’re here,” Bucky almost insisted. “You’re here because you do good work--all of you are. My poor impulse control and the fact that all of you are stupid hot is coincidental.”

Clint grabbed Bucky by both shoulders now and looked him dead in the eye. Bucky thought for a moment that he was going to speak, but instead Clint just stared, like he was looking for something. It made Bucky’s stomach knot up all over again.

Finally, he said, “Making puppy eyes at him all day is only going to make you feel worse.” 

Maybe it was the way Clint said it, like it was nothing, or maybe it was the words themselves and the way they’d been arranged. Whatever the reason, the sentiment had vacuumed the breath from Bucky’s lungs and sandwiched his heart between them. He wasn’t here to be called out like that, for god’s sake.

Man, how was it possible to feel so compressed and so hollow all at once? 

Seeming to sense this, Clint’s hands went from Bucky’s shoulders to his face, and those damn eyes caught his again. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me today,” Bucky sighed. 

“You have a shitty brain,” Clint shrugged. “Happens to all of us shitty-brain-havers. Some days are easier than others, not for any particular reason, just because they are.” 

Bucky cocked an eyebrow, “Uh, it’s an epically fruitless crush, I hate to tell you, but I think this is one thing we can’t blame on depression  _ or _ anxiety.” 

“You bite your tongue, we can blame everything on depression and anxiety,” Clint scowled. “And it’s not a crush, dude. Crushes don’t last for ten years.”

“Fine,” Bucky rolled his eyes. “Unrequited love for my best friend who barely handles his own dick, much less anyone else’s.” 

“The man does have a stunningly cisgendered heterosexual track record,” Clint nodded, gazing into the middle distance. “Like, come on. It’s 2016. Finger your ass; live a little.” 

“Clint,” Bucky attempted to shrug away, but Clint held him steady until they locked eyes again.

“Go home,” he suggested, “Do something to take your mind off this, as difficult as that may seem.”

“Especially since you’re working the rest of the day,” Bucky teased back, though he couldn’t say his heart was in it. 

“As much as I love being your fallback dick--and I say that without sarcasm--I think maybe burying your sorrows in a hobby that doesn't involve sexual gratification might be best.” 

“Yeah, because I have tons of those,” Bucky sniped, only for his shoulders to fall a second later. “Sorry.” 

“Hey,” Clint squeezed his shoulders, “Don’t ever apologize to me, okay? Just take care of yourself. Because, and I mean this in the most loving way possible, you’re no good to us if you’re too depressed to function.”

Again, Bucky was not here to be called out like that. 

Clint squished Bucky’s cheeks in his hands, and Bucky replied, “That’s just called being depressed, Clinton.” 

“Don’t I know it, James,” Clint grinned back and leaned in to give him a peck on the lips. 

**oo**

The rest of Bucky’s day involved driving to Studio City and crashing on his parents’ couch for a few hours. 

Unbeknownst to their children, Winnie and George Barnes had always talked about retiring to someplace warm. As soon as Bucky had told them he’d planned on staying in Los Angeles, ‘someplace warm’ became ‘as close to Bucky as possible’. Eight years later, as they sent their youngest daughter off to college, Bucky’s parents packed up their stuff and brought their sizeable savings to California, where they went from lifelong renters to homeowners. Dad could be a dentist anywhere, and ma dove right into the L.A. culture, snagging up an office manager job at a pet spa in Beverly Hills. 

It was surreal having them here, despite the fact that they’d relocated over a year ago. And then Becca got into a good grad program at UC Berkeley and ma almost plotzed right off her chair when she realized that one of her babies was a mere five and a half hour drive away. 

Bucky hadn’t fallen asleep on the couch as much as he’d just collapsed and remained still for the better part of two hours. He was good at that, playing possum for that long. It came in handy when he was little and his sisters begged and begged him to play with them, and it sure as hell made his life easier when he had a few hours to kill and nothing to do. 

Bruce once told him that that was basically what meditation was, but Bucky refused to believe he participated in anything even remotely related to wellness. 

Then mom had him stay for dinner, which consisted of more pot roast and potatoes than any one human could eat. After that? Another hour of digestion on the couch, of course. Bucky was in fact on the fast track to Snoozetown, USA, when dad said, apropos of nothing:

“Animals.”

Bucky remained still until dad continued, “Are you listening, James?” 

Bucky grunted. From the direction of dad’s voice and his chosen topic, Bucky could tell that he was hovering over his turtles. 

Oh yeah, had Bucky mentioned George Barnes had also become a weird turtle guy about two seconds after the move? Dad said he’d always loved animals, but never lived in a place that allowed them; Becca and Bucky suspected empty nest syndrome. 

“Animals are good for the soul,” dad said. “Not only do they give you companionship, they also give you a sense of purpose, in a way. They need me to feed them, clean their tank, to love and care for them… Not to mention, they’re excellent listeners.”

“Dad,” Bucky warned. “You’re doing it again.”

“What?” dad asked. “Your mother and I worry about you, you know. You don’t want a boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, whatever. That’s fine. You know we just want you to be as happy as you can be. I’m just saying, maybe get a dog. You like dogs.”

Bucky shot right up at that and clamored to peer over the couch. Sure enough, there was dad hunched over the turtle tank at the back of the room, still in his work duds, reaching in to love on each turtle individually. 

While Bucky had almost the exact same coloring as his dad (dad’s eyes were much lighter than Bucky’s), he had inherited the harsh lines of his ma’s eastern European face rather than the rounded-out boyish curves of his father’s. Of course, now that dad was older, he was just another middle aged white guy with a squishy face and bifocals the size and thickness of telescope lenses. 

“Dad, I can barely take care of myself,” Bucky told him. “I’m not bringing a dog into this.” 

“A cat?” dad suggested.

“Dad…”

“Fine, what about fish? They’re easy to take care of, right? You don’t get much more low maintenance than a goldfish.”

“Well, one, fish have special needs just like any other pet,” Bucky pointed out, “And two, just because I’m alone doesn’t mean I’m lonely.”

Dad looked up from the tank at that, an eyebrow arched high (okay, Bucky had  _ definitely  _ inherited that), and asked, “Does anyone ever buy your bullshit, son? I’m assuming someone does, if we apply the rule of supply and demand, but at least put in some effort once in awhile. Take pride in your craft, for god’s sake.” 

Bucky blew out a big breath and flopped back down on the couch. 

“Bucky?” 

“Sometimes I have this recurring nightmare that I’m stuck in your guys’ house until I’m fifty and you guys are all old and sick and I have to take care of you,” Bucky told him. “This has to be part of it.” 

There was a long stretch of silence, then, “Well, if any of you were to take care of us it would be Rachael. She’s the one who works in that assisted living place.” 

“Oh god, dad,” Bucky groaned, covering his face with his hands. 

“And in these nightmares, how does your face look with all that metal in it?” dad continued. “I’m very curious to see how all this works out.”

Bucky didn’t have to see his dad to know that he was gesturing to his face. 

“Man, you and mom both,” he heaved another sigh. “Though she’s more concerned about the tattoo.” 

“I wanna see what happens to a scepter piercing--”

“Septum, dad,” Bucky reminded him. 

“Whatever! I wanna see what one of those looks like on an eighty year old nose,” dad finished. 

“Ugh,” Bucky groaned, wrinkling his nose. “You don’t think I’m gonna live ‘til I’m eighty, do you?” 

“If your mother has anything to say about it, you will,” dad warned. 

“Great,” Bucky sighed. “Well, I’ll snapchat a picture to your grave… or holographic burial site, or whatever we’re using in 2069. It’ll look the same. Know why? It’s cartilage.”

Dad chuckled, at least. 

They fell silent after that, minute after minute ticking by before dad thought it appropriate to say, “Maybe you should move back in with Steve.”

“Dad--”

“He’s a good boy!” dad defended. “Brushes twice a day, flosses regularly, eats very well, exercises. Why you two even got your own places… waste of money.”

“It’s my money to waste,” Bucky reminded dad in facetious sing-song.

“Point  _ is _ ,” dad asserted shortly thereafter, “that you should consider talking to him about it. Steve’s your best friend. You love Steve.” 

_ Yeah, that was kind of the whole problem. _

As soon as Steve started dating someone, or brought girls back to the apartment for a night, Bucky would spend days after in passive aggressive snits. Hearing it was the worst. The walls of their first apartment were paper-thin--you could’ve heard a mouse sneeze through those things--and the  _ sounds _ , oh  _ god _ . Bucky knew what Steve sounded like before, at, and after climax and knowing he wasn’t the one bringing him there drove the primal parts of Bucky insane. 

“Bucky?” 

“I’m gonna go,” Bucky sat up again. 

“What, because I tried to talk to you person to person, for once?” dad asked. “You can’t pick up and run every time someone tries to talk to you about something serious.”

“Dad, I’m fucking exhausted, okay?” Bucky looked over at him. “I can’t handle talking about this right now.”

“Okay,” dad stuck up his hands. “Message received. Say goodbye to your mother at least.” 

Bucky sighed yet again and picked himself up off the sofa. If dad was worried  enough to talk to him about this shit, mom was probably out of her freaking mind. 

Bucky walked down the hallway, boots pounding a hollow click on the wood floors until he reached her bedroom door. He knocked once and called, “Ma?” 

“Come in,” she called back. 

Bucky pushed the door open just a crack. Their room looked more or less the same as it had in Brooklyn, just more spacious. The blue and gray striped duvet, the pictures of Bucky and his sisters on the wall, on their dresser. Mom sat on the bed, bathrobe on, and ran a fluffy blue towel over her damp hair.

“Hey, sweetie,” she greeted warmly. 

“Hey,” Bucky returned, not leaving the doorway. “I’m taking off.”

Mom paused for a second, then asked, “Did you talk to your father?” 

“Oh, for--yes, you freak,” Bucky knocked his head against the doorjamb. “And if you’re gonna shit-talk me, could you just not tell me that you’re shit-talking me?” 

“We’re not shit-talking, we’re  _ concerned _ ,” mom corrected.

“Concerned,” Bucky repeated through a laugh. “Yeah, and the Grand Canyon’s just a hole in the ground.”

“Excuse me for wanting the best for my child,” mom gesticulated wildly, “Give me twenty minutes, you can call the police, I’ll turn myself in.”

“Oh, my god,” Bucky’s eyelids fluttered with the effort it took not to roll his eyes again. 

“The jury of my peers won’t even wait to hear my testimony,” she continued, “All they’ll do is see your poor, sweet face and lock me up.” 

“Okay, I’m leaving now,” Bucky said. “Love you, miss you, see you later.”

“I’ll call you from prison!” mom called after him, even after he shut the door behind him and walked back down the hall. Dad stood in the entryway now, cradling a turtle to his chest in one hand while he watered one of his ferns with the other.

“Bye dad, love you,” he muttered quickly. 

Dad didn’t even look up, just called back, “Love you too, kid.” 

Bucky had never made a more hasty exit, not even after Steve had come home early to the sight of Brock Rumlow, former hook-up and total shitlord, going to town on Bucky’s ass on the living room futon. 

Bucky began looking for cheap studio apartments on Craigslist that night as he’d tried to sleep beside Clint. 

And now his parents wanted him to move back in with Steve? As if Steve would even let him, at this point. Bucky knew he could be a little…  _ extra _ at times. Part of the appeal of hanging with his family was that he got to feel normal for a few hours amidst all the crazy. Steve’s family? As opposite of extra as you could get. You could hear a pin drop in the Rogers household at any given time. Sarah had an order to everything, where mom had five kids and more chaos than anyone should rightly have.

Bucky felt like a freaking hurricane whenever he’d visit Steve’s house.

Bucky tried to shake the thoughts out of his mind as he circled his block for what felt like the millionth time, trying and failing to find a single parking space in this god forsaken city. Eventually he gave up and parked a block over, praying for a miracle as he squeezed into a spot that really should not have fit his shitty little hatchback Honda Civic. And people wondered why he walked everywhere he could. 

Night had long since fallen when Bucky reached his building. Streetlights bathed the concrete and asphalt in a soft orange glow, set against shadowy scenery and a deep indigo sky. The typically white noise of traffic roared in Bucky’s ears like waves breaking against a jetty. He’d get home, drink some beers, watch some mindless bullshit TV, and then hit the sack. Tomorrow was a new day, or whatever it was that purportedly normal people liked to say. Sometimes sleep wiped away the brain muck, other times he woke with more muck than brain. 

Bucky pulled open the front door to his building. God, had this thing ever been locked? Bucky had lived here for years, and the landlady was nice and everything, but boy would her head fly away if it wasn’t stuck to her neck. He walked all the way down to the end of the complex, where the entrance to his unit sat tucked away in a nook. Bucky grabbed his keys, all ready for the sweet relief of booze and television, when something stopped him right in his tracks. 

Bucky had four younger sisters, three of whom he could recall being born (and the one who emerged not five minutes after him). They’d all come home from the hospital in the same car seat, with the same blanket draped overhead. It was a sight Bucky knew well, despite the fact that he hadn’t seen and had had no reason to see it in almost twenty years. 

So why tonight, in the name of everloving  _ fuck,  _ was there a blanket-covered car seat on his doorstep?

 


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky’s fingers slid through the condensation on his beer bottle, leaving shiny streaks over the dark glass. His legs jiggled like crazy under his rickety dining table, which made the buckles on his boots jingle like freaking sleighbells. 

The car seat, now uncovered, sat on the table before him. Bucky would’ve felt braver staring down the barrel of a gun. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, had no idea how long this infant had been looking back at him. Why wasn’t the baby crying? Babies did nothing but cry and Bucky had a feeling he was closer to tears than this kid was. 

The only clue as to who the fuck had left this kid here was the envelope that had been sitting on the baby’s chest. The birth certificate had only Bucky’s name on it, not even the kid’s, and gave the barest details. 

Male, single birth, born March 29, 2016 at 11:53 pm, weighed 8 pounds, 5 ounces, at Providence Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, California, fathered by one Bucky Barnes. 

That was it. 

No mother’s name, not even Bucky’s real name. 

Bucky looked from the paper to the baby again. The kid was barely two days old, for crying out loud. If it was nine months since he’d allegedly gotten someone pregnant… that put him back in June. Who the hell did he fuck in June? 

Holy god, that didn’t narrow it down at  _ all _ . 

He could hear Steve now--hell, he could hear his mother now:  _ “This is what happens when you slut it up day in and day out.” _

And anyway, how was the mother so sure that Bucky was the father, anyway? Bucky was always careful… most of the time. 

“Fuck,” Bucky breathed and scrubbed his hands over his face. He was going to have to tell Steve at some point. His parents too, but mom and dad harbored a deep desire to be grandparents that was unmatched by Steve’s folks; his folks be over the damn moon about this.  

Bucky sighed and pulled out his phone. The baby yawned, scrunched his tiny nose and opened up his eyes, blue-green irises so much darker than Bucky expected them to be. He reached up over the baby’s head and plucked the hospital-issued knitted cap off of his head to reveal the trademark Barnes full head of hair. 

“Fuck,” Bucky repeated. His phone burned a hole in his pants pocket, begging him to just bite the bullet and call Steve. Steve wouldn’t know what to do with a baby, no. Steve’s expertise was in remaining calm and level-headed in the face of the universe’s abject chaos. 

He pulled his phone out and tapped through to his and Steve’s text thread. He  _ could  _ do this over text. It wouldn’t be at all graceful or the proper way to divulge such life-changing news, but it would buy him some time as far as Steve’s inevitable loud disapproval went. 

Fuck, he couldn’t do that. Bucky pressed the little phone icon and held the device to his ear. 

“H’lo?” came the groggy sound of a man who’d been asleep for at least a few hours. Bucky checked the time on his microwave. Holy shit, how was it already almost midnight? 

“Bucky,” Steve insisted this time. “You didn’t ass dial me again, did you?” 

“No, I’m here,” Bucky croaked. “Um, I kind of have something to tell you.” 

“Something that couldn’t wait another… eight hours?” Steve asked. 

“There’s a baby on my table,” Bucky blurted out. There it was. He couldn’t un-say it. 

Steve paused, taking in the words before he asked, “Is there also a Wocket in your pocket?”

“Dude, I’m not kidding,” Bucky told him, “I came home and there was a baby on my doorstep. An actual baby.” 

“Fuck, really?” Steve’s voice wavered, then he groaned. “Okay. Ha-ha, I get it, April Fool’s, I’m an idiot, whatever. I’ll fucking deal with your shit in the morning. I have an early client.”

“Steve, no--!” 

He hung up. 

That bastard. 

When Bucky went to call back, he realized that it was, in fact, two whole minutes into April Fool’s day. 

“Bucky, I swear to god I’m gonna kill you,” Steve answered now. “Tell your mom what kinda flowers you want at your funeral.” 

He hung up again. 

“Fuck me,” Bucky muttered, and this time hit the FaceTime button. 

Steve’s grumpy, half-asleep face illuminated his screen, followed by a loud, “Why are you like this?” 

“Steve, I’m not kidding,” Bucky told him and turned the camera around. Steve patted around for his glasses, then slid them up the crooked bridge of his nose. He blinked once, twice, then appeared to understand what his eyes were seeing. 

“That’s a baby,” Steve said. 

“No shit!” Bucky’s voice cracked. 

With mild horror, Steve asked, “Why is that a baby?” 

“Because he was born like two days ago?” Bucky offered. “He was just  _ here _ when I got home and I have no fucking idea what to do, Steve.” 

He hadn’t realized he’d been so close to crying until his voice wobbled and his eyes welled up. 

Steve sighed. 

“I’ll be right over.”

Bucky’s hands shook as he set down his phone and tipped back the rest of his beer. There was no way--no fucking way--that he had a baby. There just wasn’t. 

Then Bucky made the egregious error of setting his beer bottle down in the recycling, a sound that did not seem to jive well with the infant in the room. Two seconds later, Bucky found himself covering his ears as the piercing cry of a thousand banshees filled the room. 

His neighbors were gonna be pissed. 

“Hey, hey,” Bucky tried to soothe him. “It’s okay. You’re gonna be okay. Uh… fuck, you’re probably hungry, aren’t you?” 

Bucky did a cursory Google search for what to feed a baby when you didn’t have any formula or breastmilk on hand, but found no viable results. 

Oh god, this baby was going to die under Bucky’s care and it would be all his fucking fault. Why didn’t he have emergency baby supplies? What kind of idiot didn’t have emergency baby supplies?

Bucky plucked the infant from his seat and brought him close to his chest. He bounced lightly to no avail; the baby kept crying. He tried rocking him, talking to him, and finally settled on singing to him when the front door lock jiggled and Steve busted in, reusable bags in hand. 

“Shit,” Steve’s eyes went even bigger than they had on FaceTime. He set down one of the bags and approached Bucky and the baby with caution. 

“Help,” was all Bucky could say. Steve, though mesmerized, nodded and went back to his bags. From there he pulled out a box of something that read ‘Ready to Feed’ and a brand new baby bottle. 

“What the fuck is that?” Bucky asked. 

“I stopped at the drugstore,” Steve explained through half a shrug, his eyes still on the baby. “I knew you didn’t have baby stuff, because why would you… I gotta wash this and then you can feed him.”   

“What else did you get?” Bucky asked over the baby’s cries. How did lungs so small make noises that big? 

“Uh, diapers,” Steve began while he waited for the kitchen sink water to warm. “And that’s basically it. I figure those were the basics before you safe surrender.” 

Even with the makings of a cluster headache, Bucky said, “Who’s safe surrendering?” 

Steve twisted off the tap and somehow looked even more incredulous than before.

“You’re not serious,” he said. 

Bucky couldn’t quite think with the baby crying the way that he was, so the best he could do was shrug and hurry Steve along with the bottle. 

Minutes later, Bucky coaxed the rubber nipple into the baby’s mouth. 

“I’m sorry we don’t have somethin’ better,” he told the baby. “If I’d known you were a thing I woulda prepared.” 

The baby’s eyes slipped shut as he suckled to his little heart’s content. 

It was the most accomplished Bucky had felt in weeks. 

Steve must’ve been a goddamned mind reader.

“Buck, you can’t keep him,” Steve spoke softly. “He’s a little person, y’know? That’s a helluva lot more responsibility than you think.”

“I’m sorry, which one of us has been changing diapers since he was in the single digits?” Bucky looked up at him, adrenaline stirring deep down. Like  _ fuck _ Steve would take this baby from him. 

“Yeah, it’s different when it’s your baby and not your mom and dad’s,” Steve crossed his arms over his broad chest. “You can’t just tap out when you’re a dad, y’know? Because then you get Tony.” 

Bucky’s nose scrunched of its own volition. Objectively, Tony wasn’t terrible--he couldn’t have been, seeing how both Bruce and Pepper had agreed to deal with him on a day-by-day basis--but the guy had more daddy issues than a kink magazine. 

“Exactly,” Steve said, like that alone had won him the argument. 

“I’m not Howard,” Bucky returned, “Which, thank god.”

“Fair,” Steve had to agree, “But you’re not exactly the pinnacle of mental health either.”

Bucky’s face fell into a collection of flat lines. 

“No Steve, please,” he said, “I can’t take all the praise.” 

Steve rolled his eyes and pleaded, “You know what I mean, Buck. This has Dr. Phil written all over it.”

“How many times have I told you to stop watching TV with my mom?” Bucky shot back. 

“C’mon Buck, you know I’m right,” Steve sighed, now stuffing his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt. Dark circles underscored his eyes, seemed twice the size behind the thick lenses of Steve’s glasses. Bucky probably didn’t look much better. The baby, on the other hand, looked like contentment incarnated as he ate. 

“I can’t,” Bucky said softly. “Look at him, Steve. Two days and he’s already been dropped like a hot potato. Your folks wanted you, mine wanted me… I can’t even imagine what it’s gotta be like to know someone didn’t want you.” 

Steve was silent for a few blissful seconds; Bucky got to enjoy a quiet moment with his son. 

“Just because you want him doesn’t mean you should keep him,” Steve said. “You gotta think about what’s best for him, not you. Don’t you want him to have a family that can take care of him?” 

“I can take care of him,” Bucky scowled up at Steve. “Y’know, this is kinda starting to hurt my feelings.”

“That’s not--” Steve threw his hands up, then pushed his fingers under his glasses. “I’m not saying it to hurt your feelings, Buck. I’m trying to be reasonable. You’ve got a little human there. Taking care of him means a lot more than feeding him and keepin’ a roof over his head, okay? You gotta make sure he’s emotionally cared for. You can’t go out until all hours, sleepin’ with everything that moves anymore. You can’t sit on your couch in your PJs all day and just ignore problems. Being a parent, you abdicate certain parts of your life that I’m not sure you’re ready to leave behind.”

Bucky looked from Steve back to the baby. He’d since filled up on his share of formula, so Bucky held him up to his shoulder and gently patted his back. He sniffed hard, trying to ignore the stinging in his eyes. 

“I only do all that shit ‘cause I got nothin’ better to do,” he said, sniffing again (though this time it was to catch a whiff of that amazing new baby smell). “But if I got someone who needs me--”

“Bucky, do not use a baby to give yourself purpose,” Steve pleaded for the second time that night. “You can’t put that on a little kid; that ain’t fair.” 

“I’d never put that on him,” Bucky held onto his son a little tighter. “Steve, I’m not good at a whole lot, all right? I can poke people with needles and I can take care of people--”

“You’re better at more than that, Buck.”

“No, I’m not,” Bucky shook his head. “And that’s okay. I think I’d be a good dad, though.” 

Steve’s shoulders fell, and immediately Bucky knew he’d won. Steve would go toe to toe with anyone, go round after round until he was beaten to a bloody pulp and still insist he could take another hit, but when it came to Bucky, Steve knew when to pick his battles. 

“Okay,” he said, nodding through his defeat. Bucky tried not to look too smug. 

“See?” Bucky told the baby, “Uncle Steve’s a pushover.” 

Steve cocked an eyebrow. 

“That so?” he asked. 

“Yup,” Bucky nodded. 

Then Steve pulled out his phone and began to tap the screen. 

“What are you doing?” Bucky asked, nerves bundling in his gut. “Steve, what are you doing?” 

With a grin, Steve lifted the phone to his ear and very simply said, “I’m calling your mother.” 

“Steve no!” Bucky exclaimed. “You can’t.” 

“The fuck I can’t!” Steve stepped away as Bucky made a grab for his phone. “What, you’re  just  _ not _ gonna tell her about it?” 

“Of course I’m gonna tell her,” Bucky rolled his eyes. “Who do you think I am? I just--gimme a day to think, okay? I’ll tell her after.”

“You’re gonna keep this under wraps for a whole damn day?” Steve cocked an eyebrow, then laughed, “Sure.” 

“Shut up,” Bucky scowled. “One day, that’s all.” 

Steve let out a sigh and finally slipped his phone back into his pocket. “One day,” he said. 

“Thank you,” Bucky breathed a little easier. Waiting a day wouldn’t soften the blow, and his parents would murder him as soon as they found out that he’d kept it to himself for so long, but Bucky needed the time. Most people got at least nine months to adjust to the fact that they’d be responsible for another human life; Bucky was entitled to one day. 

His lungs deflated.

“Buck?” Steve asked, caution insulating his tone. 

“I’m a dad,” was all Bucky could say. “Steve, I’m someone’s dad.” 

“Yeah,” Steve nodded back. “God help ‘im.” 

**oo**

Steve told Bucky that he’d come over after he finished with his last client of the day. Knowing the client and the art involved, that wouldn’t be until at least four o’clock. This left Bucky with nine whole hours of downtime and no ability to shut off his brain and sleep. 

The baby passed out with no problem. Bucky didn’t have a crib or anything, but the internet assured him that letting the baby sleep on his mattress would not end in sudden death. The baby took to sleeping on Bucky’s mattress like he’d never been more comfortable. Every time Bucky tried to follow the kid’s lead, however, his eyelids just seemed to pop back open and leave him staring intently at the baby beside him. 

What if he woke up and needed something? What if he was hungry, or had a dirty diaper, or just needed someone to hold him and tell him everything would be okay? 

Bucky had to be there, had to be awake, had to be  _ present.  _

He touched the pad of his finger to the very tip of the baby’s nose. He traced over the top of his cheekbones, over the curve of his brow, down over the cupid’s bow of his upper lip and the subtle dip in his chin. 

Maybe that was why Bucky couldn’t fall asleep; maybe this was all a dream, or an extended fantasy sequence. The last time things had felt this surreal had been when he woke up in the hospital with his left arm looking like ground beef… or maybe the first time he dropped acid with Clint. 

Either way, it had been a long time. 

Minutes or hours may have passed while Bucky’s thoughts swirled in his head; he couldn’t be sure. All he knew was that dawn had broken outside when the baby woke again, wailing. 

In an odd moment, while changing his son’s diaper for what felt like the umpteenth time already, Bucky was sort of glad that his parents were unsettlingly fertile. He knew how to change diapers, knew to cover the basics when it came to taking care of babies. He knew to talk to them, knew to support their heads when he held them, knew that he probably shouldn’t take the kid out and about until he had some semblance of an immune system… 

Okay, he hadn’t really remembered that last part until he’d packed up and driven all the way over to  _ Brooklyn Boys _ and parked in the alley lot behind the shop. 

Steve’s bike was in its usual spot, right beside--oh, god. 

The Audi. 

Why today, of all days?

Bucky, running on exactly zero sleep within the last twenty-four hours, still decided that the best course of action was to go inside. 

He walked down the brightly-lit hallway, keeping his footfalls as quiet as possible (which was way easier when he wasn’t holding a car seat, by the way), but it was useless. The exact second Bucky rounded the corner, one Tony Stark came out of the back office and balked at the sight presented to him. 

Tony’s father owned several buildings, including the building that housed  _ Brooklyn Boys _ . Tony allegedly managed a few of the properties, but had hired a then twenty-year-old Pepper Potts to do the leg work for him. It was actually the reason Bruce had heard about the job in the first place, and Bruce had even indicated that on his application.

_ How did you hear about us?  _ In scratchy, controlled handwriting, Bruce had written,  _ Pillow Talk. _

“Barnes,” Tony greeted, mirth dancing in his big brown eyes. “Don’t tell me that’s baby sister number twelve.” 

Bucky, though tempted to agree, rolled his eyes and said, “It’d be sister number five, thank you, and no… it’s--he’s mine.”

“Get the fuck out,” Tony laughed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Seriously, what’s in the car seat?”

Bucky sighed and lifted the blanket just slightly, so the harsh light of the hallway didn’t disturb the sleeping baby. 

“Holy shit!” 

“Dude!” Bucky whispered harshly and dropped the blanket. “He’s sleeping.”

“The baby,” Tony indicated, blinking. He pointed at the car seat, “That baby right there.”

Bucky didn’t bother responding, just pushed past him and strode right into the (of course) incredibly full break room. At the round table sat Natasha, Peggy, Clint, Thor, Steve, and now Tony, who decided it would be a great idea to shout, “Bucky has a baby!” 

The room fell silent as every set of eyes landed on Bucky. Except Steve’s, actually, who shut his eyes and hung his head.

“What happened to you staying home?” Steve massaged the coiling ‘what the fuck’ tension from his eyeballs. 

“I was bored,” Bucky replied as he set the car seat on the table. He flipped up the blanket and extracted the baby. As had been his pattern, the kid was awake but silent. 

Clint whistled, “Man, when you do April Fool’s, you really do it.”

“I don’t think it’s a joke,” said Natasha, her eyes still fixed firmly on Bucky and the baby.

Everyone watched as Bucky shook his head. 

Silence blanketed the room, suffocating Bucky. Was it normal for a chest to feel too small for its lungs? It wasn’t, but if Bucky acknowledged this he would blast off into a full-fledged panic attack, and he couldn’t do that while he was holding his kid. 

Thor, blessedly, spoke up first.

“Does the young man have a name?” he asked. 

Breath returned to Bucky’s body as he meant to share the answer, only to remember, “Huh. No, not yet.” 

“Didn’t come with one?” Tony asked. 

“He’s not a Cabbage Patch doll,” Steve replied. 

“I was just asking,” Tony defended, hands up. “And if we’re spitballing here, my two cents? Anthony’s a pretty decent name.” 

Bucky let out a resounding, “No” before anyone else could. “I’m not naming my kid after you, of all people.” 

“Uh, excuse you,” Tony said. “Is there something wrong with naming your child after a certified genius and billionaire?”

“Here we go,” Natasha rolled her eyes. 

“I’m sorry, who here graduated--not started-- _ graduated _ from MIT at sixteen? Oh, what’s that? None of you yahoos? That’s what I thought.” Tony looked to Bucky. “You couldn’t ask for a better namesake, honestly.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Bucky held the baby closer to his chest. 

“Edward is also a viable option,” Tony added. 

“I’m not naming my kid after you,” Bucky scowled, but Tony didn’t look like he was about to back down from what, in his mind, was the best idea since sliced bread.

“Clint’s not such a bad name,” Clint offered. 

“Oh, for the love of god,” Bucky muttered, but that was it. He’d lost all control of the conversation. 

“ _ Clinton _ ?” Tony balked. “You’d do that to a child in this political climate? That’s just wrong.”

“I mean, if you wanna go with Francis…” Clint began but Tony cut him off with an adamant, “Your middle name is  _ not _ Francis!”

“It is!” 

“It is,” Natasha confirmed. “And I think Nate is a way better name than any of those.”

“It is not and you know it,” Tony shot back. 

“Well, now I won’t even bother suggesting ‘Thor’,” Thor said. 

“ _ Thornton _ ?” Tony cried, but Thor shook his head. 

“Just Thor,” he replied. At everyone’s attention back on him, he continued, “My father and mother both researched and taught Slavic studies in various universities.” 

“Oh, my god, that sentence was so boring,” Tony sighed and leaned back against the counter. 

“I suppose ‘Carter’ will be rejected as well,” Peggy commented lightly as she sipped back her coffee. “Though of all the names presented, I think it’s the clear front-runner.”

“You could name him after his father,” Tony suggested. 

“Which name,” Bucky asked, flat. “James or Buchanan?” 

“Oy,” Tony sucked in air through his teeth. “Never mind. What about his step father? Steven’s an acceptably normal, all-American name.”

“I’m not naming my kid after any of you schmucks!” Bucky exclaimed. The baby had fallen back asleep in Bucky’s arms. He was gonna have to take this kid to the emergency room, get him checked out, because there was no way a baby just kept quiet and  _ slept _ like that. 

“What’s everyone yelling about?” 

Bruce entered the break room with his empty coffee mug in hand, only to stop when he saw the baby pressed against Bucky’s chest. 

“Whose baby is that?” he asked. 

“Bucky has a baby!” Tony exclaimed once again, only to be silenced by a sharp look from Steve. 

“Huh,” Bruce nodded. “Guess it was bound to happen eventually. Does he have a name?” 

“Not yet,” Bucky shook his head. 

“Huh,” Bruce nodded again. “So, is anyone going to do any work today, or…?”

And in an instant Bucky’s decision was made. 

“Robert,” he said. 

Everyone’s faces fell into various shades of confused. 

“Who the fuck is--?” Tony began, and then realized. “Aw, come on! Bruce?” 

Thor, in his best impression of a golden retriever, cocked his head from side to side and asked, “And how did we come to ‘Robert’ from ‘Bruce’?”

“It’s Bruce’s first name,” Tony shot an accusatory glare at Bucky. “After all I’ve done for you, you name your kid after  _ that _ nerd…”

“Wait, why are we naming a baby Robert?” Bruce asked. 

“Because you’re the only one of these wangs that didn’t suggest naming him after yourself,” Bucky looked pointedly at each person in the room. “So now I’m naming my son out of spite for all of you.”

“I didn’t suggest anything!” Steve exclaimed. 

“Too bad,” Bucky looked down at the baby and the patch of drool rapidly soaking into the cotton fibers of his shirt. “Robbie Barnes. Got a nice ring to it, huh?” 

“Hang on, I’m still stuck on your first name being Robert,” Clint steepled his fingers and then pointed at Bruce. “Why?”

Bruce, looking a little put upon, shifted in his spot. “People go by their middle names all the time. Bucky’s name is a nickname for his middle name, for god’s sake.”

“No, I know that and I get it,” said Clint, “Just… you picked your name, didn’t you? Why not just make your first name the name you wanted to go by?”

“Because,” Bruce shrugged. “I don’t know... when I was transitioning, I found out my Uncle Rob passed away. He was the only person who knew about me being trans for a long time, even called me Bruce when we hung out just the two of us. He’d take me fishing and hunting when I was growing up, taught me how to fight--y’know, never mind. This is getting too personal.”

Bruce cleared his throat and moved silently to refill his coffee. Everyone glanced from one to the other, most of them looking to Tony to speak up and comfort his partner, but it was Bucky who spoke first:

“Is it okay if I name him Robert?” 

Bruce nodded his head, and replied, “You’re right. Robbie Barnes has a nice ring to it.” 

“You sure?” Bucky asked.

Bruce nodded again, then looked back at everyone else. Voice level (though a little off, to the trained ear), he asked, “What about that thing where we’re all at work, huh? I don’t go through payroll procedures every two weeks just so you dickheads can sit around all day.” 

And with that, Bruce left the room. The rest of them followed his lead, first Peggy and Natasha, then Thor and Clint. Tony and Steve both stood awkwardly nearby, seeming to each be daring the other to leave first. 

Tony folded.

“Well, I better go make sure you didn’t break my husband,” he said. He gave them both a little salute before making his exit. 

Steve approached Bucky with a quiet caution. 

“Robbie, huh?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Bucky nodded. “I like it.” 

Steve smiled and agreed, “Me too.” 

**oo**

The day flew by at an alarming rate. Everyone who came through the shop couldn’t keep their eyes off the baby--or, off of Robbie, rather. 

The name made everything that much more real. No longer did Bucky have a baby, or even a son; now he had Robbie. And, truth be told? Robbie was already shaping up to be a weird-ass kid. 

Robbie’s lack of concern for the constant stream of strangers unsettled Bucky a little bit. Clint snapped pictures every spare moment he had, showing Bucky each and every one and cooing over the abundance of cute. Robbie took it in stride, and even allowed Clint to hold him at one point.

Bucky’s sisters wailed almost constantly when they were first born--that he remembered firsthand. Then every other parent on the planet talked extensively about the sleepless nights brought on by their infant’s restless moods, which brought Bucky to the initial conclusion that babies were just loud. 

Robbie hardly made a peep, though, except for when he needed to be fed or have his diaper changed. The rest of the time he just seemed to take in the world around him or nap. 

By the time Steve was done with his final client, Bucky and Robbie were both starting to nod off. Bucky had now been awake for over 36 hours. His bed sounded like nothing short of heaven right now, but he had to drive home to get there. 

“C’mon, I’ll drive,” Steve said, startling Bucky out of his stupor. 

“Your bike,” Bucky replied, barely able to form the words. 

“I’ll get it tomorrow,” Steve reassured him and grabbed Robbie’s car seat out of Bucky’s hand. 

“Good move,” Bucky told him. 

“I occasionally know what I’m doing,” Steve smiled back.

A statement which did not apply to buckling in car seats, apparently, but eventually Steve figured it out and they took off toward Bucky’s apartment. 

“Okay, so here's what's gonna happen,” Steve began as they walked through the concrete courtyard of the complex. “I'm gonna make you some food, warm up a bottle for Robbie, and then you're gonna go the fuck to sleep.”

Bucky groaned. 

“And you're not gonna bitch about it,” Steve added. “You're no good to the kid if you don't sleep.” 

“But what if he needs me?” Bucky whined as his surroundings began to swim in his peripheral vision. 

“He needs someone who's not literally falling asleep on the job,” Steve insisted and unlocked Bucky’s front door. “Huh. You forgot to lock it again.”

“Aw damn it,” Bucky rubbed his eyes (Steve was not allowed to know that sleep sounded amazing right now). “Don't tell my mom. She'll lecture me about getting murder-killed.”

“Uh, I’m not gonna have to,” Steve said and nudged Bucky in the ribs. 

Sure enough, sitting on his Craigslist futon, illuminated by the dull light emanating from the kitchen, sat one Winifred Barnes, looking ready to kill. 

“Hello,  _ James _ ,” she enunciated, like she didn’t quite believe this was her son and not a Body Snatcher. “Anything you care to tell me?” 

Adrenaline spiked in Bucky’s stomach and left him feeling wide awake.

“Okay,” he said, carefully stepping inside the apartment, “I was going to tell you today, but I didn’t know how.”

Then it occurred to him, “Wait, how the fuck did you know?” 

Mom pulled out her phone and brought up Facebook--specifically, the  _ Brooklyn Boys _ Facebook page, on which there was a series of photos under the album “Our New Mascot”.

“Mother _ fucker!” _ Bucky shouted. “Clint posted the pictures!”

“On Facebook, Instagram, and I believe he Twittered one of them too,” said mom. 

“Tweeted, ma, for the love of God,” Bucky rolled his eyes and scrolled through the pictures of his (admittedly beautiful) son. 

“That’s all you have to say?” Mom rose to her feet and stalked over to Steve, her stocky Eastern European frame intimidating Steve into taking half a step back. She grabbed the car seat from him and brought it over to the dining table, exactly where Bucky had set it the night before. 

“You didn’t think this was something to tell your mother nine months ago?” she lifted the blanket to find Robbie fast asleep. She dropped her voice, “For god’s sake, is that why you’ve been acting so strangely?” 

“As I have told you many times before,” Bucky declared, “That’s the depression and anxiety, ma. And if I’d known about it before last night, you really think I wouldn’t’a told you?”

“Well, who knows with you!” she exclaimed and looked back at Robbie. “Who’s the mother?” 

“Don’t know,” Bucky shrugged. “Found him here last night, no name on the birth certificate, ‘cept mine.”

“Well, that’s a tad presumptuous, don’t you think?” Mom asked and adjusted the cap on Robbie’s head. She paused, then removed it, gasping like her worst fears had come to pass. 

“What?” Steve asked. 

“It’s the Barnes hair,” Mom muttered. “All five of them had it, George and his brothers had it, and his father before--”

“We get it, the hair thing dates all the way back to Methuselah,” Bucky rolled his eyes again. 

“And this face,” Mom continued to inspect more closely. “That chin, my god. He looks just like you.” 

“He does not,” Bucky folded his arms. 

To prove a point, mom brought up the camera roll on her phone, navigating until she found the photo collage she’d made for his birthday only weeks before. She zoomed in on the very first picture of Bucky that had ever been taken and held it close to Robbie’s face. 

“Ma, that’s a scan of a crappy picture from 1989,” Bucky reasoned, like he didn’t already believe beyond fully that Robbie had splashed out of the Barnes gene pool. 

“No, he looks exactly like you,” Steve chimed in. 

Mom’s eyes went dark and she turned her sights on Steve. 

“You are not innocent in this, young man,” she told him. “I know you’ve known since five minutes after he did. You could have told me.”

“It’s not anything for me to tell,” Steve reasoned, bracing his hands on his slim hips. Framed by his bomber jacket, it was the most offensive sight Bucky could think to have beside him while he talked to his mother about her illegitimate grandchild. 

“Oh good, you’re all here.”

Steve and Bucky whirled around to see George Barnes carrying a giant cardboard box. 

“What the hell, when did you get here?” Bucky asked. 

“Just now,” dad said.

“What the fuck, I didn’t hear the door open,” Bucky stated, his arms now folded tightly across his chest. 

“You didn’t shut it before,” dad replied and set the box on the table, right beside the car seat. This new commotion stirred Robbie from his sleep. Dad took a breath before his soft, “My god, that’s uncanny.”

Robbie remained silent, save for a few gurgles, as mom lifted him out of the car seat and cradled him in her arms. 

“Well, like father like son,” she said. 

Bucky frowned. 

“What?” 

“Well, you hardly made a peep when you first came out,” mom told him. 

“Scared us half to death,” dad agreed and closed in so he too could look upon his grandson more closely. “Rebecca was so vocal about everything--couldn’t even sneeze with her in the other room or she started crying--but you… well, you mostly kept to yourself.” 

“You’ve been brooding just about the entire time you’ve been on this planet,” mom said. 

“Seems about right,” Steve agreed. 

“What’s his name?” dad asked. 

Bucky shifted. 

“Robbie,” he told them. 

“The full name,” dad urged, light dancing in his eyes. “What’s his full name?”

Bucky sighed and looked down at his feet, then muttered the answer. 

“James,” mom sighed, exasperated.

Bucky groaned, “Robert Grant Barnes. There, happy? His name is Robert Grant Barnes.” 

He could feel Steve’s full body blush from an entire foot away. 

“Why not Chaim, after my grandfather?” mom asked. 

Bucky wrinkled his nose, “Didn’t you just answer your own question?” 

“Winnie, take it easy,” dad placed a hand on mom’s shoulder, “The boy’s never been one for tradition, so why should it change now? I think it’s a fine name, sweetheart.” 

Bucky felt the tips of his ears go red. There weren’t many instances where dad called him ‘sweetheart’ anymore. Afraid that Feelings were quickly approaching, Bucky deterred the conversation. 

“What’s in the box?” he asked. 

“Oh,” dad looked over and pulled open the cardboard flaps. “Some of your baby things. Your mother wanted to bring them over, but she didn’t want to stop home before she came here because you know how the traffic gets from that side of town--”

“Dad!” Bucky exclaimed, and dad caught himself. 

“Right, sorry,” he gestured for Bucky and Steve to come to the table. The box was full to the brim with things Bucky had only seen in pictures. Not just clothes, but blankets and playmats and crinkly toys and books that had definitely seen better days. 

“You guys kept all this?” Bucky asked. 

“James, your father keeps everything,” mom replied. “Now where’s his formula? This poor boy must be starving.”

“Oh, here,” Steve shook his head and grabbed the duffel Bucky had improvised into a diaper bag. He pulled out the formula and a bottle and began to prepare it, just like he’d said he would. 

“James, is it Steven’s responsibility to be doing this?” mom commented, glaring daggers right at him. 

“I offered,” Steve piped up. “Because Bucky should be in bed, getting some rest. He hasn’t slept for two days straight.”

Mom slowly turned her gaze upon her son. 

“Get in bed,” she ordered. 

“Ma, I’m not tired,” Bucky told her. “What if he needs me and I’m asleep?” 

Mom’s eyes softened and she handed Robbie off to dad, who looked more than happy to accept him. 

“My sweet, good boy,” mom hummed as she stepped into Bucky’s personal space. She rested her warm hands on his cheeks and gave him that calm smile that only a mother could, before saying, “That is the dumbest fucking thing you have ever said.”

Bucky frowned, “What?” 

“That’s what I said!” Steve exclaimed. 

Mom whipped around quickly to inform Steve, “You are just as bad as he is and rest assured I will be dealing with you later, young man.”

“Ma, come on,” Bucky sighed and tried to step away from her, but only ended up stumbling backward over nothing, right into the wall. He looked at all three sets of eyes staring back at him and admitted, “That was unfortunately timed.” 

“Steve,” mom sighed. “Honey, I'll finish with the bottle. You put this one to bed.” 

Bucky snorted, “Well god knows I've never objected to a big strong man taking me to bed.”

“Buck, for the love of god,” Steve wrinkled his nose as he began herding Bucky back toward his bed. 

“Steve, c’mon, you’re not gonna let her boss me around like that, are you?” Bucky pleaded, ignoring the way the room began to spin again. 

“Uh, she’s your mom,” Steve pointed out, “I’m so outranked it’s not even funny.”

Bucky whined, losing his balance only when his calves collided with his mattress and he went sailing down onto the lumpy mass of springs and cushion. He was vaguely aware of his boots being pulled off, and then of being scooted up the bed. 

“‘M’not tired,” Bucky yawned. 

“Sure you’re not, pal,” Steve said. “You’re just gonna lie here wide awake until your parents get outta here. Then you’re gonna get up and we’ll party all night long, just you, me, and the kid.”

Bucky felt a laugh bubble out of his chest. 

“Sounds like a great time,” he said. 

“Well, we’ll do it,” Steve smiled. “Just wait for me to give the signal.”

Bucky murmured something that Steve couldn’t make out, but he was asleep before he could say it again.


	3. Chapter 3

_ “I’m sorry, your autocorrect must’ve glitched. Because I swear to god I just read ‘Bucky has a baby’ with my own two eyes.” _

Steve hung his head. He could barely think beyond the exhausted pulse of his brain in his skull. He hadn’t gotten much in the way of sleep after last night--maybe half an hour before his alarm went off. The rest of the time he stared at his ceiling, wide-eyed as he mulled over the situation in which Bucky had found himself. 

He swiped through to his and Sam’s conversation and replied,  _ “No glitch. Bucky Barnes is now a father.” _

Sam’s reply came through like a flash of lightning:

_ “God help us.” _

Steve looked up from his phone. Truth be told, he could probably climb over Bucky and fall asleep right next to him, but somehow that didn’t sit well in Steve’s gut. Bucky was rightfully exhausted; he always was, even before Robbie turned up. Adding to that, parents were always exhausted, whether or not they were totally functional before they had their children. Bucky was already in the red when it came to expendable energy. The only foreseeable outcome in Steve’s mind? This kid was going to drain Bucky of every scrap of life force he had left, until all that remained was a pruny corpse. 

There was no way Steve could handle a life without Bucky.  

While Steve’s brain circled the proverbial drain, Winnie and George were busy as busy could be. Winnie wasted no time once Bucky had fallen asleep, and took immediately to making meals to stick in the freezer. George, meanwhile, began disinfecting nearly every surface in the place (which, knowing how Bucky spent most of his free time, was probably wise). 

“How the hell does he live like this?” George asked. “I’ve never seen so much crap in such a small space. Are we sure there’s no black mold in here? You don’t think he’s got roaches, do you?” 

“Not any with legs, I’ll tell you that,” Winnie shook her head.

In high school, Bucky got away with smoking pot for all of three minutes without his parents knowing. As self-professed ‘children of the 70s’, George and Winnie were cool with a lot of things that other parents would have flipped a lid over. Steve’s parents certainly didn’t approve when he came home one night with bloodshot eyes and twenty dollars worth of chicken nuggets and french fries.

Steve glanced then from Winnie and George to the car seat, where Robbie sat.

_ Staring _ at him. 

“What?” Steve asked him, answering the accusation that wasn’t there. “I didn’t get you into this, remember? I was on your side. I wanted you to go to a nice family with a house and two parents who can take care of you and give you all the things you nee--”

The unmistakable hand of Winnie Barnes smacked against the side of Steve’s head. 

“Ow!” He brought an arm up to block her next blows. “Winnie, what the hell?” 

“You’re being a shit,” Winnie all but spat back. “Did you say any of that to Bucky?” 

“Not in so many words,” Steve lowered his arm, eyeing Winnie carefully. “But excuse the hell out of me for thinking he’s too much of a human disaster to raise a baby.”

Winnie smacked him again.

“Robbie,” Winnie then corrected. “The baby’s name is Robbie. And where in happy hell do you get off deciding that my son isn’t fit to be a father?” 

“That’s not--” Steve attempted to defend, but it was too late. 

“He may be a mess, but Bucky is a good boy,” Winnie continued. “And you’re not exactly the pinnacle of functionality either, I might add.”

“I never said I was!” Steve shot back. “I know I’m not! That’s why I wear condoms. Plus, you won’t catch me whoring around like that one.”

Steve pointed a finger back at Bucky, who lay limp on his bed, dead to the world except for an occasional septum-rattling snort. Steve sighed, stood up, and crossed the short distance to Bucky’s bed. It took a little doing, but he rolled Bucky’s dead weight to the side. 

The snoring ceased. 

“Whore though he may be, he has a good heart,” said George, then he caught himself. “Wait, do I mean slut? I think I mean slut.” 

Steve’s stomach dropped. “I’m not saying he doesn’t have a good heart,” he told them, though didn’t mention that he believed quite the opposite. He explained, “I just… don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“And that’s the last time you say it,” Winnie warned him. “Tell yourself that all you want, but if you so much breathe a word of it past tonight, I will send you back to New York on a Greyhound with nothing but a sandwich and a change of clothes. Then you can tell your mother what you said.”

“Okay!” Steve held up his hands, defeated. “I’ll never--”

Winnie held up a hand. 

“I want you to think very carefully before you finish that sentence,” she said. “Because if it’s some smartass remark, forget the Greyhound. The next motorized vehicle you’ll be inside will be a hearse.”

Steve bit his lips shut. 

“That’s what I thought,” Winnie said. 

As though on cue, Robbie began to cry and suddenly something pulled at Steve’s gut like a fish on a line. He’d heard babies cry before, had even felt compelled to help a crying baby in the past, but there was something about Robbie that hit a panic button. Maybe it was the fact that Robbie was Bucky’s baby, and therefore part of Bucky.

Steve hadn’t yet met a challenge he wouldn’t overcome for Bucky. 

Before Winnie or George could get to him, Steve was at Robbie’s side. He unbuckled the seat  and pulled him up, a warm lump of blankets and baby smell, and brought him immediately to his chest. Steve felt himself tumbling in the WABAC machine, back to when he was just a skinny little thing and Bucky had just come out to him. He’d been so scared that Steve would reject him that halfway through his confession he’d started bawling his eyes out. It was awkward to maneuver, but Steve had managed to get Bucky to put his head on his chest and just breathe. 

Steve had stroked Bucky’s hair until he’d stopped crying. He’d breathed deep with Bucky, taking in his deodorant and shampoo and that distinct smell of his that always set Steve inexplicably at ease.

Steve buried his nose in the thicket of baby hair on Robbie’s head and took a breath. It seemed that, like his father, Robbie had a calming effect on Steve, and vice versa. Robbie’s full body wails had slowed to a steady stream of whimpers. 

From his chest to the cradle of his arms, Steve adjusted Robbie so he could get a good look at his face. The longer he stared, the more it became apparent that nobody but Bucky Barnes could have fathered this child. It seemed a dimple in Robbie’s chin had appeared overnight--or, if it hadn’t, Steve could make out exactly where a dimple would eventually be. Man, come puberty time this kid was gonna be one hell of a heartbreaker. 

Like father, like son, Steve supposed. 

George cleared his throat, and Steve looked up. His heart thudded steadily against his ribs like it hadn’t in years. His lungs constricted and his head went spinning, and there he was, twelve years old in Brooklyn having an asthma attack amid the stifling summer heat. 

“What the hell is happening to me?” Steve asked. 

The shit-eating grin on Winnie’s face would have been more infuriating if Steve hadn’t been holding onto the world’s smallest copy of his best friend. What came next was even more disconcerting, four words Winnie spoke that would drastically alter the course of one Steven Grant Rogers’ life:

“You’ve fallen in love.”

 

* * *

 

After another couple of hours helping around Bucky’s apartment (mostly, Steve held Robbie and kept him company while Winnie and George worked), Winnie insisted Steve go home and get some rest. Frankly, she was operating under severe delusions if she thought that Steve would be doing anything but tossing and turning for the second night in a row. 

Steve intended to make himself useful and go into the shop to work. There was always a sketch to work on or papers to go through and sign, and Steve did experience a lot of gratification when it came to getting work done. However, when zipping down the street on his bike, Steve stopped a few storefronts away from  _ Brooklyn Boys _ , at a restaurant called  _ Down Home Delights _ .

Sam Wilson had been the first official friend Steve had made in Los Angeles. They ran the same route in the mornings and had often seen one another in passing (well, in Steve passing, anyway). One morning they caught up with one another. Steve slowed his pace to say hello, Sam fired back some smartass remark that made Steve chuckle and ask, “You wanna grab a post-workout coffee?” 

Sam had held up his left hand and indicated the silver band on his ring finger, at which point Steve had back pedalled as fast as he could. Steve had never been good at asking people on dates, be they romantic dates or platonic dates. In so many cases, Bucky was the only reason Steve had the friends that he had to begin with. 

Luckily, misunderstanding aside, Sam had agreed to go with Steve and they’d been friends ever since. 

_ Down Home Delights  _ was just as much a passion project as  _ Brooklyn Boys _ . Everything inside looked like something you’d find in a little old white lady’s kitchen, from gingham wallpaper to rooster decor to the veritable feast for the eyes that was typical Southern Comfort fare. Sam owned the place with his business partner, Riley Bouchard.

Business partner and husband, Riley Bouchard. 

“Steve Rogers, as I live and breathe,” said Riley as he re-tied the apron around his waist. Steve wasn’t entirely convinced that the guy hadn’t been on the wrong side of an accident with a taffy pulling machine. He stood half a head taller than Sam, with lanky limbs and dirty blond hair and these big brown eyes that, okay, Steve  _ totally _ understood how Sam fell for.  

“Hey, Riley,” Steve greeted, glancing around the sparsely populated dining area. “Looks like I missed the dinner rush.”

“Well, from what I hear you got a pretty decent reason,” Riley grinned, the sweet Georgia lilt in his voice softening the blow of what he was saying.

“Yeah,” Steve gave a nod. “Things have been insane.”

Riley’s lips curled upward, sympathy now crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I remember when my sister didn’t know she was pregnant. Thinks she has indigestion when she knows  _ full well _ granny’s Christmas dinner never did a thing to her, sits down on the toilet and ‘plop’ goes my nephew. They’re fine now… Elliot had to wear a helmet for a while, had to get his skull in the right shape, but--”

“Riley, c’mon now,” Sam cut in, approaching from a booth in the corner. “Nobody’s tryin’ to hear about Emma’s toilet baby.” 

“It was a Christmas miracle!” Riley argued. “It was all I could do not to tell her to name the kid Jesus. ‘Course, mama woulda beat me like a rented mule if I’d’a said it…”

“Tried to beat you like a rented mule when she found out you married a black man,” Sam reminded him. 

“That was not what happened,” Riley insisted, “Mama’s fine with it. It was granny who tried to come at you with her BB gun, God rest her soul. Thank god we took it away from her after she started takin’ aim at the ground squirrels.”

Sam gave a wistful hum, “Nothing more charming than good ol’ fashioned racism.” 

“What the hell,” Steve muttered to himself as Sam shoved an order at Riley’s chest. 

“Natasha and Clint, they both want their usual,” he explained, then turned to Steve. “You, sit your ass down at the counter. You’re telling me everything.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but did as he was told. Everything he knew, he relayed to Sam: Bucky’s parents, the baby, the blatant disregard for safe sex… and with every word, Sam hung his head lower and lower. 

“God, that guy’s a mess,” Sam finally said. 

“That’s what I’m saying!” Steve exclaimed. “And suddenly  _ I’m _ the asshole for thinking it’s a good idea to safe surrender.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam nodded, amusement lighting up his face. “You’re all excited about being Uncle Steve, aren’t you?” 

Steve let out a frustrated groan and smacked his forehead against the countertop. His glasses dug into his face and the smell deep inside his nose went metallic for a second, because (oh god) he  _ was _ excited.

Then Riley appeared beside Sam and set down a plate in front of Steve. 

“Macaroni and cheese with braised pork on a bed of greens,” he announced. “One of my better dinners, if I do say so myself.” 

Steve came back to himself, realizing now that Clint and Natasha were on either side of him with their own dinners in front of them. 

“I didn’t ask for food, did I?” he asked, more to reassure himself that he hadn’t gone insane than a lack of appetite. 

“No, but your face sure as hell did,” said Riley. “It’s sweet an’ all, you worryin’ about Bucky and baby Robbie, but worryin’ works up an appetite.” 

“I’m not worried,” Steve said. 

“Oh, no one believes that,” Nat shook her head. “We’re all worried about him. I’m worried, Sam’s sure as hell worried, and Clint? Look at him. He’s been tearing up his fingernails all day.” 

Steve looked over to find Clint caught red-handed, so to speak, what was left of his thumbnail between his teeth. 

“Why are your titties in a twist?” Riley asked. 

Still chewing, Clint replied, “I’m too young to be an uncle.”

“You are older than everyone in this room,” Sam muttered.

“Darlin’, hush,” Riley stuck up his hand, obviously in no mood for his husband’s so-called ‘facts’, and looked back to Clint. “And why wouldn’t you be his step-father, in any case?” 

“Uh, because why would I be?”

Suddenly the only sound in Steve’s ears was the whirring of the fans in the kitchen, as every speck of his friends’ collective attention landed on him.

A look to the left, a look to the right, and Steve deduced, “That wasn’t directed at me, was it?” 

“No,” Sam shook his head, and the smug twist of his lips made Steve want to punch a hole right through the wall. 

“That’s a nice Freudian slip you’ve got there, though,” Natasha smirked and leaned into Steve’s personal space, “You wanna talk about it?” 

“No!” Steve snipped back. Even he could hear the utter panic in his hasty retort, so he backpedalled, “I’m tired, okay?”

“Mmhmm,” Sam nodded at the exact same time Clint reassured, “It happens to everyone.”

“I just--” Steve began before he could think better of it. He’d really meant to keep his promise to Winnie, but Steve had already started speaking and if he didn’t say something, they would all know he had something he didn’t want to share, and apart from being his dear friends, he was also in the presence of three of the most personal-information-obsessed weirdos on the planet. 

Nat liked the thrill of extracting the information, would do some straight up espionage if it meant quelling her curiosities about people. Sam liked hearing people’s problems and talking things out, and on several occasions had stayed up until the wee hours because Steve needed to talk. Clint was always happy to commiserate, having had his fair share of problems and not wanting anyone to feel unloved or alone. 

“Lord, stop lookin’ at him, you creeps,” Riley shook his head. “The man’s tired, he’s anxious, and y’all won’t let him eat a meal in peace.”

Riley, like a normal human being, respected the privacy of his friends. 

“Fine,” Clint clapped his hands together and pointed them at Riley, “So why would I be the stepfather exactly?” 

“Because you guys fuck like rabbits,” Sam supplied, “Horny, mentally ill rabbits.”

“That doesn’t mean jack shit,” Clint asserted, and Steve tuned out of the conversation altogether. He had to.

Steve didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him. Speaking the God’s honest truth, hand on the Bible and everything, Steve loved Clint. He was a doofus, but he was genuine and kind and cheerful, and unfailingly loyal even in the face of intense bullshit. Steve would go into battle, literal or figurative, and he would be confident with Clint by his side. 

But man, the thought of him and Bucky doing the do was more than Steve’s brain could handle, and boy had he heard enough of those stories to have a lifetime of discomfort. Bucky was a sharer, which was fine when they were talking about people Steve had never met, or even with Darcy or Nat. With Clint, it was tricky; everything would be fine and dandy until moments like now, when Steve remembered that Clint knew Bucky in a way that Steve didn’t, in a way that he never would.

Steve ate without joining the conversation again. Voices became little more than white noise as Steve trundled down the rabbit hole of his brain and into his innermost thoughts. These were the pre-thoughts, the abstract, ideas he hadn’t allowed to take root and bloom, seeds of thoughts he’d never planted, kept behind glass and heavily guarded. Steve kept them where any good Catholic boy would, and visited them about once every eight years or so. 

But every so often, a seed was so small that it slipped through the cracks and planted itself. That was exactly what Steve faced now, a little sprig of greenery that Steve’s subconscious immediately recognized. 

Bucky.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve was a block away from home when he turned around and sped back to Bucky’s apartment. Weirdness, anxiety, and onslaught of life-changing crap aside, something wasn’t sitting right in Steve’s gut, and it all came back to Bucky. He parked his bike on the street behind Bucky’s building and walked through the alley between one complex and the next. He couldn’t even say what drove him forward. He felt like he’d swallowed the world’s most powerful magnet and all he could do was hang on as it sought out its other half. 

As he opened Bucky’s apartment door, Steve was met with the sight of his bed-headed best friend attempting to assemble an Ikea crib in his dining area. It was endearing, in a way, to see Bucky’s eyebrows knit so tightly, to see his tongue peek out from between his lips or push out his labret. 

“You gonna stand there playin’ pocket pool all night, or are you gonna help?” 

Steve let out a breath and slipped his jacket off his shoulders. It was barely April and Southern California was already starting to broil under the springtime sun, and it wasn’t any better in the apartment. 

“Gah, how are you wearing a hoodie?” Steve grimaced and sat beside Bucky. 

“What are you talking about?” Bucky raised an eyebrow. “I’m fuckin’ freezing, man, we’ve been over this. You’re a radiator, I’m a lizard person. Only I’m not a lizard person because lizard people don’t exist.” 

Steve snorted and gave Bucky a shoulder shove, “Sounds like something a lizard person would say.” 

“Lizard people aren’t real, Steve,” Bucky continued, completely sober. “If I were a lizard person, could I do this?” 

Bucky’s eyes turned out in different directions and he stuck out his tongue, a look that lasted all of half a second before both he and Steve descended into laughter. With Bucky it was easy like this--a split second and they were two dopey kids again, side by side on a stoop in Brooklyn, laughing like there would never be anything funnier than what they’d just said. 

“Man,” Steve sat back on his heels, still smiling like a lunatic, and grabbed the instructions from across the floor. Assembly seemed simple enough, just tedious. He did point out, “well, you violated the first instruction, which was don't start without a buddy.” 

“I've tried that on you before,” Bucky tossed him one of those leading man smiles, “Historically you never accept the offer.” 

“Okay, well stop asking me to tug on your dick and maybe I'll start helping,” Steve shot back. “Where did you put all the screws?” 

“Aw, you're gonna help me screw?” Bucky's grin broadened as he tossed over the plastic bag full of screws and nails and fasteners. 

“I think you already proved you don't need any help with that,” Steve said and turned back to where Robbie lay in the center of Bucky’s bare, blanket-less mattress, “You might need a little help with accident prevention, though.” 

“Hey, if you wanna be my designated condom roller-onner…” 

“Oh my god,” Steve felt his face get hotter as he began to assemble the first parts of the crib. His mom always said he could get flustered by taping two pieces of paper together; when it came to building actual things, it was no different.  He looked back at Bucky, only to find that he'd joined his son on the bed. 

Then somewhere deep in the caverns of Steve's  brain, that teeny tiny seedling of a thought unfurled its first leaf. 

“Hey,” Steve said, voice soft so as not to startle Robbie or Bucky. Bucky hummed, but made no further acknowledgement so Steve soldiered on. “I'm really sorry about how I reacted to this whole thing. I've been a dick.”

Bucky looked at him now, but still didn't speak. 

“You're gonna be a good dad,” Steve told him. “You're a good guy, and a good son and a good brother, and honestly you're the best damn friend I'm ever gonna have.” 

The tension melted from Bucky’s shoulders as he pulled Robbie into his arms. 

“I love him so much, Steve,” he said then, barely loud enough to reach Steve’s ears. “It's stupid, but--”

“It's not stupid, Buck, he's your kid,” Steve told him. 

“I know, but,” Bucky brushed his fingers over the soft dark hair on Robbie’s forehead. “I woke up and swore it was a dream. This shit doesn't just happen. I have a  _ kid. _ I can't have a kid.  _ I'm _ a kid.”

Steve smiled and looked down at the screwdriver in his hands. “Sure feels that way sometimes, huh?”

Bucky huffed, “Steve, c’mon. You’re the most well-adjusted person I know.”

“Doesn’t mean I know what the hell I’m doing all the time,” Steve said. “And you’re not the trainwreck you think you are, y’know. You own a business--”

“Yeah, that you mostly run,” Bucky muttered.

“To be fair, I think Bruce is the one who mostly runs it,” Steve pointed out. “Because  _ he _ is probably the most well-adjusted person we know. Or maybe Pepper.”

“Yeah, Pepper,” Bucky agreed. 

“Point is,” Steve continued, “None of us really know what we’re doing, okay? I got into a fight in a bar last week because a guy got too in my face during a basketball game. I don’t even like basketball.”

Bucky’s lips quirked up at the sides, and Steve felt his shoulders release as relief crashed over him like a wave at high tide.

“I’m gonna help,” he continued. 

“Steve, no,” Bucky shook his head. “That’s not your responsibility. I’m the dumbass, I gotta deal with it.”

“Buck,” Steve sighed, crib and instruction booklet now forgotten as he scooted across the floor and onto Bucky’s mattress. He said, “You’re not a dumbass. A smartass, yeah, but not dumb.”

“I’m a high school dropout with an illegitimate child,” Bucky said. “Which brings us back to the tire fire that is my life.”

Steve hung his head and let out another long sigh. This time his eyes settled on Robbie, who looked around as best he could. 

“You’re not alone,” Steve said then. “You’ve been with me through I don’t even know how much. Hell, I fucked up your arm and you never hung me out to dry.”

“You didn’t fuck up my arm, the road did,” Bucky pointed out. “And it wasn’t even your fault; it was physics. This? This is my fault.”

“So what?” Steve shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna drop you like a moldy loaf of bread.”

Bucky wrinkled his nose, “That was weird, what you just said.”

“Shut up,” Steve knocked him on the shoulder. “Point is, I’m with you no matter what. Hell, you could kill a guy and I’d bust you outta prison. Bake a file into a cake and everything.” 

“At that point I think I’d count as a menace to society,” Bucky replied, sadness seeping into every word. 

“Well, you procreated, so I think that ship sailed,” Steve cracked a smile, and Bucky, in spite of everything, smiled back. Steve’s fingers twitched, just falling short of reaching up and brushing the hair off of Bucky’s forehead. 

Wait, what the hell was that? 

Before Steve had time to dwell on it, Bucky cleared his throat and said, “Thanks, Stevie. Means a lot. You’re gonna have to fight my folks for babysitting rights, but other than that…”

Robbie yawned his tiny baby yawn and wriggled in his blanket. 

“Oh yeah?” Bucky asked. “You think you’re ready to be unswaddled, buster?” 

Steve outright grinned as Bucky undid Robbie’s blankets. Robbie’s arms flailed, still not used to the wide open space in the outside world. Then Steve noticed, “What’s that on his belly button?” 

Bucky raised an eyebrow, “His umbilical cord?”

The little brown-black stump poked out of Robbie’s already protruding belly button, and Steve wrinkled his nose. 

“You didn’t think they just ripped the whole thing out, right?” Bucky asked. 

“No!” Steve shot back, a little more defensive than he’d meant to be, “I know they cut it, and I guess the, uh...”

“Jerky,” Bucky suggested.

Steve’s nose wrinkled, “Eaugh, yeah. I mean, I guess it makes sense, I just never thought about it before.” 

“Kinda sounds like you may need my help more than I’ll need yours,” Bucky said, the barest hint of a smile on his face. Steve flipped him off. 

“Is uncle Steve a boner?” Bucky then asked Robbie. “He is, isn’t he?”

“Dude!” Steve exclaimed. “Don’t tell your kid I’m a boner.”

“You’re right, he’ll find out on his own,” Bucky agreed. Steve realized then that he’d managed to scoot closer to Bucky and Robbie, so much so that he could feel a ghost of Bucky’s breath on each exhale. Robbie yawned again, his whole body moving with the action, and this time Bucky held out his index finger so Robbie could wrap one teeny hand around it. 

That sight alone almost did Steve in. 

“Man,” Bucky broke the silence. “You wanna order some pizza? I’m fuckin’ starving.”

“Ah, I already ate,” Steve shook his head. “I’ll stick around though, if you’re looking for company.”

“Well here, hold the kid while I order,” Bucky transferred Robbie to Steve and promptly rolled to his feet, presumably to look for his phone. He grabbed it off of the kitchen counter and gestured at the crib parts, “And once I’m done we can work on this hot mess.”

“Sounds good,” Steve agreed and looked down at Robbie.

The kid was staring right back at him, not unlike the way Bucky would--unblinking, trying to gather every last bit of information before reacting. Steve stuck out his index finger, wondering. 

Robbie grabbed onto it, his hand barely big enough to close around the circumference of the single digit. The fact that Steve didn’t make some ungodly noise was nothing short of a miracle. Robbie kept staring, so Steve held his gaze. 

“Hey,” he spoke softly, so as not to call attention to himself while Bucky ordered quite possibly half of the menu from the pizza joint down the street. 

Robbie, obviously, did not reply, so Steve continued, “So, I think you and I may have gotten off to a bad start, and I acknowledge that it was completely my fault. It’s not anything you did and it’s not anything your dad did. Your uncle Steve can just be kind of a dick sometimes, but uh, he-- _ I _ am working on it. I’m working on it, I promise. I get worried about your dad, though. We all do. Even you’ll worry, trust me. But he looks out for the people he loves, okay? And he loves you a hell of a lot.”

Robbie’s eyes, owlish and clear, held Steve’s still. 

Steve ran the pad of his thumb over Robbie’s microscopic fingernails, then admitted, “And I’m kinda crazy about you myself.”

He brought Robbie up to his chest and cradled him close, tipping his face ever so slightly to get a whiff of that oh-so-intoxicating new baby smell. He stayed like that for a long moment after, and thought that maybe he could actually stay this way forever. 

There had been a while when he was a kid that he thought he might not to be able to have kids, given that he was always so sick and underdeveloped. Steve had always wanted to be a dad, though. Was this his biological clock? Did men even have biological clocks? No, that was ridiculous--men could make babies until they were in their seventies, or something. 

Steve chose that moment to open his eyes. Bucky was standing there, phone gripped loosely in his hand and lips parted ever so slightly. His eyes glazed over, as though seeing the Grand Canyon, or the Redwoods, or the Pyramids of Giza for the first time. But he wasn’t looking at any of those things. 

Bucky was just looking at Steve.   
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

Bucky’s days suddenly had a rhythm. 

After a fair bit of haranguing, Steve had eventually gotten Bucky to take an official leave of absence. Had he still had to drag Bucky out of  _ Brooklyn Boys _ kicking and screaming, his heels dug in and body limp? Absolutely. Bucky didn’t like the idea of not working, he never had, but soon Clint had piggybacked on Steve, and then Natasha and Peggy on them, then Thor and Tony on all of them. 

Bruce, god love him, had budgeted paternity pay before anyone had even convinced Bucky to take time off. 

These days, Bucky woke up, fed and changed Robbie, played with him, put him down for naps, and repeated. Days then bled into weeks, all the while Robbie grew like a weed. His limbs plumped, his face rounded out, his eyes flitted from place to place as he took in more and more of the world around him. Bucky couldn’t look away--if he did, he’d miss everything, the kid would be a year old and walking and then talking and then going off to college and never calling or writing ever again. 

That’s why a good eighty percent of Bucky’s camera roll was now Robbie. Robbie’s first real outing to the park, Robbie’s first time to Bubbe and Zayde’s  _ (“I called my grandfather zayde, and if either of yours had been alive that’s what you would have called them too, James.”) _ , and every time Bucky’s friends held Robbie… Every moment had to be catalogued. 

He couldn’t lose them. 

“Bucky!” 

Bucky snorted awake, his cheek pressed against some cold, metallic surface, his neck and legs aching beyond belief. He tried to stand upright, but his skeleton, nowhere near as youthful and bendable as it once was, would not comply. He had to move each part separately, patiently, until the pain dulled and he could see where he was. 

“What the shit,” he muttered and grabbed the back of his neck. 

A hand reached right into his line of sight and peeled something off of his cheek. 

“Is that a magnet?” he asked. 

One of the naked lady magnets from his fridge, to be specific. 

Steve stuck the magnet back against the fridge and set down the rest of his canvas grocery bags. 

“The hell time is it?” Bucky asked, rubbing the now bare spot on his cheek. 

“Six,” Steve replied as he unloaded various bags of produce. “Client had to cancel, I had a couple walk-ins for pishky little one-offs, left me a lot of spare time so I figured I’d come over and make dinner.”

Bucky stretched his arms above his head in an effort to work out the last few kinks in his spine. He asked, “What are we having?” 

“Stir fry,” Steve replied, and Bucky’s arms flopped down instantly. 

“Why?” he whined. “What did I do?” 

“Uh,” Steve paused, looking at Bucky over the tops of his glasses, “Maybe because this is not the first, not the second, but the  _ fourth _ time I’ve found you asleep on your feet.”

Fine, Bucky couldn’t deny that. After a month of nonstop childrearing, just about any surface looked like the world’s most luxurious mattress. 

As if to punctuate the thought, Bucky let out a giant yawn. He figured, “Wouldn’t that mean I need more sleep and not more vegetables?” 

“You always need more vegetables,” Steve told him. “Hell, if you had it your way you’d eat nothing but Hot Pockets and Pop Tarts until your heart exploded.”

Bucky huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, refusing to make eye contact as he actually said the words, “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

He had to cut back on smoking weed with Clint.

Except he hadn’t hung out with Clint in… weeks. Not since Robbie had been in his life. Bucky’s heart squeezed in his chest and he made a grab for his phone. 

“What are you doing?” Steve asked. 

“Sexting Clint,” Bucky returned, as though it should have been obvious. He looked up at that moment and saw the muscles in Steve’s jaw go taut, so he smirked and shrugged, “What? I’m a dad, not dead.”

Steve rolled his eyes and went to the kitchen to start prepping their dinner. 

Bucky tapped furiously at the screen,  _ ‘Hey what are you doing tonight’ _

Like the beautiful bastard he was, Clint responded almost instantly,  _ ‘Sitting around with my thumb up my ass, waiting for a proposition of course.’ _

The filthy smile spreading over Bucky’s face must have been too grand to miss, because Steve made a noise and muttered, “You perv.”

“What my dick and I get up to is nobody’s business but ours, Steven,” Bucky replied, far too primly for someone who had just messaged his fuckbuddy a wall of eggplant emojis. 

“Are you or your dick going to eat before you get into… whatever it is you two get into?” Steve asked. 

“Yes, mom, I’ll eat your bullshit vegetables,” Bucky said.

Clint’s reply swished through,  _ ‘I assume you’re coming here, unless you want the image of your bare ass burned into your son’s retinas for all eternity.’ _

_ ‘Good call’ _ , Bucky replied and slipped his phone back into his pocket. He asked Steve, “Hey, could you watch him for a little bit after we eat? Not too long.”

Steve’s shoulders went stiff, his hands came to a halt in their methodical vegetable chopping. Shit, was he about to turn around and actually knife Bucky in the stomach?

“So you and Clint can bang?” Steve asked, but still didn’t turn around. 

“I mean, yeah,” Bucky proceeded forward slowly, eyes trained on Steve for any sudden movements or changes in behavior. “C’mon, dude, I’ve been pent up for weeks. I’ve been too tired to fuck myself, for shit’s sake. Do me a solid,  _ please _ .” 

“And that entails watching your son while you go rail Clint,” Steve reiterated, like he needed to say it so many more times before he would understand it. 

“Or get railed  _ by _ Clint, yes,” Bucky confirmed. “Can’t say which one will happen ‘till it’s happening.” 

Steve’s face pulled into a grimace as he muttered, “Gross…” and went back to chopping. 

“So, that’s a…” Bucky prompted.

“Fine!” Steve snapped. “Whatever, yes. I’ll watch your infant son while you go get railed or do the railing or…”

“Whatever?” Bucky offered, a shit-eating grin spreading across his face. There was something satisfying about grossing Steve out with sex stuff. As if growing up Catholic wasn’t bad enough, Steve also had the great misfortune of being the only child of two parents who, while super cool and totally accepting, still had a difficult time openly discussing sex in any form. 

Bucky, meanwhile, could say ‘vagina’ and ‘penis’ with a straight face before he could even recite his ABCs. 

“Ever been railed, Steve?” 

Steve pursed his lips--a Sarah Rogers classic--before straightening up and nodding his head.

Bucky’s jaw dropped to the floor, elation too all-consuming to ignore. He crossed his arms and in his best panty-dropping tone remarked, “Steven Grant Rogers, you bad, bad boy. Who with?”

Steve let out a breath and looked up, as though begging the Holy Spirit Himself to give him strength. 

“You can withhold all you want,” Bucky told him, “But I have a very limited pool of names to choose from and I’m not above guessing.”

“Peggy,” Steve admitted and, oh, the twinge in Bucky’s shorts at the thought of that beautiful sight… a hefty deposit in the James Barnes Bank of Spank to say the least. “And, um--”

“More than once!?” Bucky yelped before he could help himself. He smacked a hand over his mouth; he didn’t trust himself to speak again just yet. 

“I’m straight, not prude,” Steve scowled.

Bucky’s entire chest reverberated with the force of his, “HA!”

“Okay,” Steve rolled his eyes. 

“Steve, you refused to slam a girl on all fours for  _ years _ because you thought it was disrespectful,” Bucky said. “When I told you about the first time I slept with a guy, you could barely wrap your head around it because  _ that’s not what sex is for _ .”

“Hey, I was a  _ kid! _ ” Steve insisted, his face now bright red. Oh, this was too good. Bucky actually considered going out and buying a diary just so he could catalogue this moment and reflect on it until his dying day. 

Instead, he settled on singing, “ _ Steve likes it up the bu-utt. _ ” 

“Shut up,” Steve warned. 

“Pretty Peggy pegged you with a plastic pecker?” Bucky teased back, then reconsidered. “Silicone, probably. She’s smart like that.”

“I’m holding a knife, asshole,” Steve snipped, shaking the broccoli-dusted knife at Bucky with more force, frankly, than was called for, but Bucky knew when to draw the line. He stuck up his hands and took a step back. 

He should check on Robbie anyway. 

Bucky slept with Robbie’s crib butted right up against his mattress. As the month had gone on, mom and dad brought over more and more of their antiquated baby apparel. Bucky vetoed both primary colorblocked onesies  _ and _ corduroy sailboat shorteralls, because he wasn’t insane, but the blankets and the stuffed animals, once washed, were kind of perfect. Robbie liked (to the best of Bucky’s knowledge) the baby quilt that bubbe had made for Bucky some twenty-eight years ago, and Becca’s stuffed piglet that she had so aptly named Pinky. 

Robbie was awake, and as soon as Bucky came into his line of sight he began to wriggle. Bucky plucked him up from his crib, bare of everything but a mattress pad, and brought him to his chest. Robbie gurgled.

“I know, baby,” Bucky sympathized. “Uncle Steve  _ is _ a prudish butthole.”

“That’s a weird way of saying ‘Uncle Steve is doing your dad a solid so he can go get plowed tonight’,” Steve shot back. 

Bucky dropped his voice to a whisper, “Uncle Steve is just jealous that no one’s plowing him tonight.”

“No I’m not,” Steve said, his voice still sharp with warning. 

Bucky fell silent. Steve had gone back to chopping a while ago, but the methodical slicing and dicing had progressed into a hasty hack job pretty fast.  _ Fine _ , Bucky was done teasing him for right now. He walked back over to the kitchen and turned Robbie around, sitting him in the cradle of one arm so they could both face Steve. 

When Steve didn’t acknowledge either of them, Bucky put a finger just below Robbie’s lower lip and, in a voice, said, “Uncle Steve, you look so sad.” 

Steve’s lips pursed as he kept chopping. 

“Aw, come on Uncle Steve, how could you be mad when I’m so cute?”  Bucky Robbie continued.

Steve broke. A grin spread across his face as he set down his knife and held out his arms. Bucky passed Robbie to him and, goddamn it, if that wasn’t a heart-melting sight. Steve’s face animated instantly, cooing and smiling--and Robbie smiled back. 

“Dude!” Bucky exclaimed. “He smiled! He’s smiling at you!” 

And what a thing of beauty it was. His chubby cheeks pushed up into his dark blue eyes, which were trained gleefully on Steve. Bucky didn’t realize he’d stepped so close to them until his arm brushed against Steve’s. 

“God, I love him so much,” Steve breathed and pulled Robbie against his chest. 

Some primal programming in Bucky’s brain activated at the sight and before he could stop himself he said, “You’d be a good dad.”

Whatever spell Robbie had cast broke and Steve looked over to Bucky. They stood so close that Bucky could faintly smell the onion and garlic on Steve’s hands. Yeah, Bucky had had fantasies that involved Steve before, but they were mostly sexual in nature (with a few disgusting domestic ones thrown in every now and then, but whatever, shut up). Now Bucky had it in his mind that Steve  _ would _ be good at being a dad, and more specifically a dad to Bucky’s son. 

“Here,” Steve said then, offering Robbie back. Bucky took him and, shit, that had been the wrong thing to say. 

“Uh,” Bucky began, Robbie’s head pressed against his shoulder, “How long until dinner, you think?” 

“Maybe half an hour,” Steve supplied quickly. “Gotta make rice and everything.” 

Bucky nodded and sat down at the table, settling Robbie in the cradle of his lap. Half an hour passed by like a flash of light these days. All he had to do was make faces at his baby, talk to him, to play peek-a-boo and tell him how much he loved him. 

When he looked up again, dinner was ready. Steve set a bowl on the table beside him, full of rice and veggies and,  _ are you kidding _ , tofu. 

“Don’t look at it like that,” Steve said. “You’re gonna hurt my feelings.”

“Yeah, I have feelings too and this hurts all of them,” Bucky returned frankly. Steve grabbed Robbie from Bucky’s lap and put him back down in his crib, trying not to be too obvious that he was waiting for Bucky to take a bite. 

Bucky sighed and speared a peapod and some broccoli on his fork. 

The crunch and pop of organic plant matter hit every receptor in Bucky’s brain. He hadn’t had vegetables on purpose for way too long and his body was very clearly ready to stage a revolt. He stuffed his face like a man obsessed, pissed that Steve was right and  _ so fucking relieved _ that at least one of them wasn’t a total fucking moron when it came to eating right. 

And then Bucky got a particularly good bite and straight up moaned around it. 

His eyes popped open. Measured silence filled the air… maybe Steve hadn’t--

“Wow, I had no idea you hated vegetables so much,” Steve said.

Damn it. 

“Fuck off,” Bucky shot back through another mouthful. 

“I got you to eat tofu,” Steve boasted, his voice slathered with absolute glee. 

“You’re a sore winner,” Bucky told him. 

“Oh?” Steve’s eyes lit up behind his poindexter glasses.

“Don’t,” Bucky warned. 

“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of,” Steve cupped his hands around his mouth to declare, “ _ I won! _ ”

“God, gloating is an ugly color on you,” Bucky shook his head and took another bite.

“Don’t even care,” Steve beamed, then broke into one of the least coordinated versions of the running man dance ever executed. Bucky almost choked on the aforementioned tofu, he was laughing so hard. 

“Oh yeah,” Steve said, his arms now wriggling in choppy waves, “See that Robbie? This is what we call a ‘teachable moment’, and the lesson is that your dad is a wang.” 

A speck of broccoli flew up into Bucky’s nasal cavity as he snorted. 

“You sure it’s not that his Uncle Steve is a fucking dork?” he asked, and then reconsidered as he watched Steve’s bulky body move, “Or that white guys probably shouldn’t attempt to moonwalk?”

Steve pivoted a full 360 degrees, ending with a flourish of both middle fingers aimed directly at Bucky. 

Like his mom always told him: dinner takes a lot longer when you can’t stop laughing with the people you love.

 

* * *

 

In all honesty, Steve had kind of been hoping that Bucky would stick around after dinner. He found that he was coming to enjoy the nights when he would come over to Bucky’s place, or when Bucky and Robbie would come to his, and the three of them could sit around and watch a movie or play cards, or even just sit on their phones and enjoy the silent company of one another. 

It was exactly the way it was back when they were kids, before the novelty of teenage autonomy had taken hold. Those were the days of box forts and video games, of late nights under the covers reading comic books by flashlight and waking up the next morning with pillow marks on their faces and drool on the sheets.

Steve hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed all that. 

Bucky was way more social than Steve, though. When he’d first moved out to L.A., Steve had been excited to have a friend so close. Then Bucky started going out, which Steve knew he liked to do, started sleeping around with anyone who would fall into his bed for a night. He was still Bucky, just… updated, like the new version of iTunes. And like the new version of iTunes, Steve was still getting used to the changes. 

At least Steve knew where Bucky was tonight, and that he’d be back later.

A night in with Robbie it was, then.

“Okay, kid, you and me,” Steve narrated as he sat down on the crappy secondhand loveseat Bucky had insisted on picking up not a week before. Furniture had never been Bucky’s first priority, and up until so very recently Bucky had been watching his TV from either his mattress or his dining table. 

Now at least they could flip through Netflix with all the ass comfort of the MEISTERVIK and the lumbar support of the BÖRJE… not that Steve had any way of knowing whether this couch they’d found on the side of the road had come from IKEA. 

“At least it doesn’t smell like a back alley anymore, huh?” Steve asked Robbie and bent forward to kiss the top of his head. “Uncle Steve used a  _ lot _ of Febreeze and almost broke your bubbe’s steam cleaner, but hell if I’m gonna let you guys live with a dirty couch.”

He flipped through until he found a personal favorite,  _ The Emperor’s New Groove _ , and pressed play. Bucky insisted that it didn’t matter if Steve watched cartoons, that the kid barely knew which way was up, but something about watching World War II documentaries with a baby just screamed  _ wrong _ . 

Plus, as fascinating as those documentaries were, they did not afford Steve the opportunity to get Robbie dancing along to the opening song. 

Not five minutes into the movie, the front door opened. For a split second, Steve was both thrilled and confused at Bucky being home so soon.

But it wasn’t Bucky. 

“Knock-knock,” Natasha announced as she strode into the apartment in her yoga pants and a t-shirt. Like most of his employees, Natasha had decorated her skin exactly to her tastes. Black and gray tattoos hugged her limbs like ivy, tinged only by red and purple hues. She’d already removed her makeup for the evening, leading Steve to believe she hadn’t planned on going back out tonight. 

“Is everything okay?” Steve asked, suddenly alert. 

“Yeah,” Nat nodded, “Clint and Bucky were trying to swallow one another’s faces, so I figured I’d come hang out with you and the nugget.”

She leaned down to Robbie’s level, though still at a reasonable distance, and asked, “Because who’s Auntie Nat’s favorite nephew in the whole world?”

Steve couldn’t see it, but he could tell Robbie was smiling again. 

“Damn it,” Nat shook her head, “That’s fucking adorable.”

“Uh,” Steve’s eyebrows crunched as Natasha righted herself and moved seamlessly to sitting right beside them. “Not that I’m not always happy to see you, but… how’d you know I was here?” 

“Bucky told me,” Natasha supplied. “Doesn’t take a genius to know you’d just be sitting here watching cartoons until he got back.”

“From banging your boyfriend?” Steve asked, a sharper edge to his tone than he’d intended. Nat, to her credit, kept a straight face. 

“Yes, Steve, that’s what they do sometimes,” she said and drew her knees up to her chest. She yawned then, let her eyes slip shut, and added, “I would’ve stayed any other night, but I’m on my period and all I want to do is sit on the couch and watch TV while my uterus sheds, and if I watch TV at my place while Clint and Bucky fuck, I’m just gonna get all riled up and try to sit on someone’s face.” 

Steve could feel his face get redder and redder with each word that came out of Nat’s mouth. How exactly was it possible to be so inappropriate in such a short amount of time?

“What?” Natasha asked, eyeing the full body blush to which Steve had succumb. 

“I don’t know,” Steve shifted where he sat, Robbie still a warm, solid weight on his lap and against his stomach. “Just… it doesn’t bother you?” 

Natasha raised an eyebrow, “It being…?”

“Clint sleeping with Bucky,” Steve said, not wanting to think of whatever depraved thing was going on over at Clint and Nat’s place. Did they kiss and work up to it? Or did one throw the other against a given surface and just go to town? 

“Why would it bother me?” Natasha asked. 

“Because,” Steve shrugged, not really having settled on an answer yet. “I don’t know. They’re friends.” 

“You’re gonna have to do better than that,” Natasha told him. 

“Okay, fine,” Steve sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “You’re not worried that… I don’t know, Clint’s gonna realize he likes being with Bucky more?” 

That was probably the first time Steve had ever seen Natasha  _ laugh _ . Chuckle, chortle, snort, and even giggle a few times, but the full body laugh had until tonight been shrouded in mystery. 

“What?” Steve scowled. 

“Steve,” Natasha said as she caught her breath, “Steve, no offense intended: Bucky’s a great person, a good friend, and a dynamite fuck, but oh my god, he and Clint… They went on one date, Steve. One. And they called it off in the middle because the whole thing went down in flames.”

Steve could feel the line on his forehead getting more and more pronounced as he tried to cobble together some idea of what Clint and Bucky’s relationship actually was. 

“They love each other, though,” Steve reasoned. 

“And I love you,” Natasha returned. “Should we go on a date? Candlelight, holding hands, sweet talk one another…”

“Wha-no!” Steve let out a laugh. “That’s… nothing against you, but no. You’re my friend.”

Natasha hummed, then posed, “But would you have sex with me?” 

Steve sat with ‘no’ on the tip of his tongue for a solid few seconds. He’d seen Natasha dressed in her best, had seen her dance and seen her move her hips and had definitely stared at her cleavage more than once… 

“If I were just a stranger you met in a bar--”

“I don’t cruise for strangers in bars,” Steve reminded her. 

“Oh my god, I will slap you,” she muttered. “I’m bleeding; I don’t have time for this shit.”

“Fine, yes!” Steve exclaimed. “Yes, I would have sex with you given the right circumstance.”

“Exactly,” Natasha said, as though that was supposed to prove her point. “Sexual attraction and romantic attraction aren’t the same thing. They go hand in hand a lot of the time, but they don’t have to.”

Steve digested this information, not sure entirely how to sort and catalogue what Natasha was trying to tell him. It made sense, yeah, more than Steve had initially thought. He liked to think of himself as a generally open-minded guy, but every once in awhile his starchy Irish Catholic upbringing reared its ugly head. Right and wrong, up and down, left and right… the Rogers home ran on twosomes. 

He’d spent every day since he met Bucky forcing himself to see the shades of gray between the black and white.

So yes, it made sense that love could come in different forms, that sex had different reasoning behind it besides ‘meaningful’ and ‘meaningless’. 

Hell, there was a reason he and Peggy hadn’t gone the distance with their relationship. She too wound up in that gray area, just as Steve had ended up in hers.

No, Bucky was his best friend--that he knew for sure. Of course he got protective of him and wanted him to be happy, and if sleeping around made the guy happy then who was Steve to judge? People deserved to live their lives in a way that made them happy, so long as it didn’t hurt anyone else. 

What the hell was this poisonous feeling deep in his gut?

“You really don’t have to worry,” Natasha continued. “Clint is content and Bucky has never been able to commit to one type of laundry detergent, let alone a whole person.”

When Steve didn’t respond right away, Natasha asked, “Unless that in itself is the issue?” 

Steve felt his blush intensify, turning him from carnation pink to a deep, blood red. 

“Okay, commitment issues aside,” Natasha began, “Who’s been the one constant in his life since you guys were kids? I really don’t think you have to worry about losing him to someone else.”

Steve turned Robbie so he could cuddle him closer, anchor himself to reality while his mind ran  to the end of the galaxy and back. Why should he be worried about losing Bucky when that was so obviously a non-issue? 

“Steve,” Natasha tried, her voice much softer now. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Steve muttered. 

Not even a beat passed before Natasha told him, very gently, “Yes you do.”

Robbie, of course, thought this was an optimal time to reach up and grab at Steve’s nose. 

“C’mon, man,” Steve honked, and Robbie smiled again. “Ah, yeah, you’re a real comedian.”

Steve pulled Robbie’s hand away, only to get both hands on his face and another smile. 

“God, you’re gonna be such a pain in the ass, aren’t you?” he asked. 

“Steve,” Natasha called him back. Steve kept his eyes on Robbie, but hummed. He wasn’t just going to ignore her, for god’s sake. 

She went on, “I won’t say it, and I won’t make you talk about it, but I do want you to think about it before you have a mental breakdown.”

“I’m not--!” Steve cut himself off. Who was he kidding? He’d been steadily speeding toward the edge ever since… well, ever since Bucky decided to move out. 

“It’s okay,” Natasha reassured. “Like I said, we don’t have to talk about it. All we have to do is watch TV and cuddle with the baby. Cool?” 

Steve nodded and let Natasha scoot right up beside him. Even in her pajamas, she still smelled like upscale salon shampoo and cinnamon gum. As comfortable as he was with Natasha, though, not even a ten-foot thick concrete wall could shield him from the cold, hard truth: namely, all of this was just a way to pass the time until Bucky came home. A nice way, yes, but still a means to an end… and a very particular end at that. 

God, he was so fucked.

 

* * *

 

Of all the people Bucky had slept with in his lifetime, Clint was the person he definitely had the most fun with. Sex was always fun, in Bucky’s mind, but with Clint there was a genuinely playful feel to it. For instance, Bucky had never done ecstasy with another one of his partners, and then subsequently watched said partner do naked handstands with a boner slapping against his stomach while Bucky watched and laughed. Clint rolled with sex the same way he rolled with life, and it was a great experience to share with him. 

And afterward, you had an open invitation to stay as long as you wanted and smoke as much pot and watch as many cartoons as your heart desired. 

Clint nudged Bucky’s bicep and offered the swirling purple-and-silver glass pipe, but Bucky declined. 

“Gotta drive back,” he yawned and signed simultaneously, then flopped down into the mass of pillows that padded Clint’s bed. He had to drive back home, but not just yet. He could stand to bask in the musky post-coital heat for a few more minutes before returning to his new life. 

Clint settled in beside him, pipe now on the nightstand and his head resting against Bucky’s. He threaded his fingers through Bucky’s and let out a sigh. That was the other nice thing with Clint: he didn’t have to engage in awkward small talk after he shot his wad when it was just the two of them. Even with Natasha thrown in between them (or Bucky thrown in between them, as it were) the three of them were more likely to chatter as they wound down together. 

Bucky could fall (and had fallen) asleep just like this. Any other night, he would, but tonight? Tonight he was going home to Steve.

A few more minutes passed before Bucky untangled their fingers and patted Clint on his chest as he sat up. Clint followed, letting out a big yawn himself before turning up his hearing aids. Sometimes the sound got too overwhelming when every other sense was stimulated, which Bucky respected. If Clint wanted to know what sorts of dirty talk spilled out of his mouth mid-fuck, the guy could read his lips. He didn’t need to know just how loud Bucky was  _ every single time _ . 

“You gonna be in the shop tomorrow?” Clint asked. 

“Probably,” Bucky shrugged, “Kid’s gotta learn what his dad does for a living sometime,” as he began the search for his boxers and jeans. He found them draped over the red velvet armchair Natasha had permanently moved beside the bed. The woman liked to watch, sometimes tell them what to do while she got off.

Bucky shook his head. Thoughts like that were gonna get him going all over again. 

He finished dressing in silence while Clint took another hit off of his pipe, and then another. Then he pulled on his Tweety Bird boxers and a DARE shirt (ha-ha) and walked Bucky out to his car. 

They made out against the door for a hot minute, but just when Bucky thought about going in for round… three? Yeah, three. Just as he thought about going in for round three, Bucky got the image of Steve sitting on the new loveseat, watching TV with the kid on his chest and a sour look on his face--hair curlers and bathrobe optional, but encouraged. 

Bucky pulled back, a little breathless, and patted Clint on the cheek. 

“‘Til next time, man,” he smiled. Clint smiled back and rested their foreheads together. 

“‘Til next time,” he repeated, then stood upright, “Now get off my damn lawn before I call the cops.”

Bucky snorted and got into his car, flipping through his radio channels before settling on the alt rock station. He gave Clint a final wave before he took off into the night. As with the moment you finally scratch that itch that’s been gnawing at you for all too long, satisfaction seeped out of every pore. 

Now he could go home and hang out with his son and his best friend, without the looming threat of inappropriate fantasizing of said friend. Good thing, too, because Bucky genuinely enjoyed coming home to Robbie and Steve, and he couldn’t run the risk of fucking that up just because he wanted Steve’s dick in his mouth.

Bucky parked with minimal searching involved and all but bounded back to the apartment. Sex always put a little pep in his step, but the people waiting for him were really what drove him tonight. 

It had only been a few hours, but he  _ missed _ his boys. 

Bucky threw open the unlocked front door and, with a little more spunk than necessary, announced, “It’s okay, I’m back.”

Robbie’s little head popped up at the sound, and Bucky could see a little patch of drool on Steve’s t-shirt. Both his boys had sleep mussed hair and cloudy looks on their faces.

Both smiled. 

“Nat’s already gone, huh?” Bucky asked as he shucked his sweater and flopped down on the couch. 

“Yup,” Steve yawned. “Clint texted her like ten minutes ago.”

Bucky held out his arms and Steve, blessedly, knew exactly what he was asking and passed Robbie to him. 

“Hello, sweet boy,” Bucky cooed. “Did you miss daddy? Daddy missed you.”

“Had no idea you were gone,” Steve said through another yawn. “We went and got matching tattoos, got into a bar fight with some bikers. Oh, he goes by the name Knuckles now.”

Bucky  _ pfft _ -ed and looked Robbie in the eye, “Did you kick some poser ass?” 

Robbie smiled. 

“God, I will never get tired of that,” Bucky hummed. His head lolled to the side and hit Steve’s. Steve stilled, but didn’t move away. Good, because that warmth was absolutely magnetic. 

“Have fun?” Steve asked. 

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Bucky supplied quickly, “I can feel your butthole pucker from here.”

“Shut up,” Steve nudged him. “‘Cause I was thinking… y’know, if you wanted to do that, uh, more... that I could watch Robbie more.” 

Bucky turned, his head no longer touching Steve’s but their faces now inches apart. 

“Really?” he asked. 

He didn’t make eye contact, but Steve nodded. 

“Well, god knows he loves you,” Bucky said, excitement in his voice barely contained. 

“But then I was thinking it’s dumb for me to come and then leave so late,” Steve continued, and Bucky’s heart sank. Well, so much for that. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. “That makes sense.”

Of course it did. Steve made an Olympic sport out of practical decision making. 

Crestfallen, Bucky opened his mouth to thank Steve for the offer regardless, but Steve spoke first:

“What if we lived in the same place?” 

Bucky’s voice cracked over a laugh that he so desperately tried to keep contained.

“No room for you here, dude,” he reminded Steve. “And no offense, but your place is a little too Good Housekeeping ever since I left.”

“I know,” Steve nodded, “That’s why I was thinking we get another place. Like, a permanent place.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. 

“A two year lease?” he asked. 

“I was actually thinking like,” Steve swallowed, “Maybe buying a house.”

This time Bucky made no attempt to hide his laugh. 

“You can’t buy a house,” he said. “Where the fuck would you get the money for that?”

“Uh,” Steve raised an eyebrow, “Did you miss the part where I won a TV competition?” 

“Yeah, but we used that to open up the shop,” Bucky reasoned. 

“Not all of it,” Steve shifted on the couch so he could face Bucky better. “My waitlist is months long, people throw hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars at me for any given piece. I don’t have all that many bills, I don’t do all that much… Buck, I’m serious, I could put a down payment on a house tomorrow if I wanted.”

Bucky must have still looked skeptical, because Steve continued, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a yard for Robbie to play in? And your own room with a door that locks? I’ve been itching to start painting again; it would be nice to have a workspace.” 

Those big, earnest baby blues bored into Bucky, his face so honest, so fucking pure in its intentions.

“It’d be nice to have some more space,” Bucky admitted. “Not that I was gonna make the kid grow up in a studio apartment, but… you’re sure?” 

Steve nodded again. 

Bucky sighed and hung his head. Leave it to Steve Rogers to talk him into another hare-brained exploit. He looked Steve right back in the eye and grinned. 

“Let’s do it.”


	5. Chapter 5

Steve may have had enough money to put a down payment on a house immediately, but house hunting proved to be more involved than both Bucky and Steve thought. How many bedrooms, how many baths? Do they look on Craigslist or hire a realtor? Were they willing to sacrifice time and energy into repainting and reflooring?

There was a lot to think about. 

Fortunately, their first break had come in the form of one Pepper Potts, who, after starting and running a handful of businesses had taken on a new challenge: getting her real estate license. Pepper had been incredibly professional when offering her services and had waived her commission fee, allegedly just happy to sell her first house and help some friends.

_ “And of course you’ll spread the good word about how much you loved your realtor.” _

Bucky hadn’t renewed his lease at the end of May, and so for the last three or so weeks he and Robbie had been living in his parents’ guest room. As kind as his parents were for offering their home, Bucky was more than ready to be back on his own with the kid again. 

Which was why, after only thirty seconds inside the little three bed, two bathroom home just outside of North Hollywood, Bucky declared, “This is it.”

Pepper and Steve had barely crossed the threshold, but Bucky was more than certain that Steve would agree. The space wasn’t anything anyone would call special. It had nice big windows and a lot of natural light.

“Okay, well I don’t know how you could possibly know that, but,” Pepper began, tone cool as usual, “three bed, two bath, huge yard, one car garage, been on the market forever so if you want it, it’s yours… I’m sorry, but Bucky, what the hell are you doing with your child?” 

Bucky turned to face both Steve and Pepper in the entryway, then looked down at the contraption strapped to his front. 

“Why, you don’t recognize the latest in fall fashion?” he asked, indicating his son with the flourish of a hand. 

“It’s June,” Steve reminded him, which Bucky wanted to tell him he  _ knew _ because why else would he have put a bucket hat on his son’s head and made the kid wear sunglasses? Hell, he’d slathered the kid with sunblock before they left, even though it was morning and June gloom draped over the San Fernando Valley like a wool blanket. 

“Whatever,” Bucky brushed it off and, in a questionable French accent, continued, “It’s from the and coming designer  _ Robert Barnes _ .”

“Wow, leaving off the ‘t’ and everything,” Pepper snarked, “Next thing we know you’ll be heading to  _ Target _ and using a  _ bidet _ .” 

“Hey, bidets are fantastic,” Bucky said. “Nothing wakes you up in the morning like blasting your butthole with water.”

At which Pepper nodded and conceded, “Fair.”

Steve, on the other hand, pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. 

“Well, explore,” Pepper bade. “The master bedroom is down the hall on the left; the other two beds are on the right. The door at the end of the hall is the bathroom and the kitchen is right over here.”

Pepper strode over to the kitchen in a few sure steps. She was already tall, but that didn’t curb the woman’s love for high heels. There was something intimidating about a woman in size 14 patent leather pumps, and damn if Pepper didn’t enjoy every second of looming over her husbands. She wore a dress of her own design, one of many upon which she’d ultimately built a business. The selling point? 

Pockets. 

Each dress, each skirt, all had pockets deeper than the Mariana Trench. 

Needless to say, she’d done very well for herself. 

“So, you have a gas stove and a washer and dryer in here,” Pepper told them, but only Steve was listening. Bucky wandered down the hall and opened the first door on the right. A small, square room with cream colored carpets and white walls stared back, and the other room on the right proved similar. The bathroom was small, but Bucky could work around that. 

The master bedroom, like the rest of the rooms, didn’t have much to it. Bucky supposed that was where decorations and furniture came in. It reminded Bucky of pictures from middle and high school, where he and Steve looked like themselves, but so… plain. Their bodies had once been blank canvases, just like this house, and suddenly Bucky’s imagination ran wild, decorating and furnishing the house in his mind’s eye. 

“I don’t know, kid, what’s your take?” Bucky asked Robbie (or, more accurately, the top of Robbie’s head). 

Robbie gurgled and flailed his chubby arms and legs.  

“Yeah, that’s where I’m at too,” Bucky agreed. “Should we go see what Uncle Steve and Aunt Pepper are doing?” 

That earned a squeal. 

Bucky checked the master bathroom, which was only a little bigger than the other, before swinging back around to the kitchen. Maple cabinets lined the walls, wood floors stretched to the back door, outside of which Bucky could see Pepper and Steve. Bucky opened the door and walked down the brick steps into the impressively sized yard. A covered patio stretched over a broad area in the grass--actual grass. A wooden fence enclosed the property, looking almost whimsical with a large jacaranda tree butted right up against it and a flagstone walkway running along the furthest part of the yard. 

While Bucky had walked into the middle of the yard, Steve had taken to examining the patio. It didn’t take a genius to know what he was thinking. 

“Good spot for a grill,” Bucky commented. 

“An actual grill,” Steve marveled and turned to Bucky. “Bucky, I could put an actual grill out here. No more Weber kettle.” 

Bucky’s lips curled into a full-blown grin. 

Steve was such a  _ guy _ sometimes. 

“And we could have a table out here,” he continued, “Shit, if it closed and everything in time we could have a real cookout for Fourth of July.” 

Bucky knew Steve missed the hell out of those. He hadn’t had a full blown Steve Rogers birthday party in almost a decade. Sarah and Joe would go all out every year, with hot dogs and hamburgers and potato salad and coleslaw, then later on giant racks of ribs and steaks the size of a small moon. They’d shoot off fireworks on the cement in their backyard and eat homemade apple pie to end the night.

Steve deserved to have that again. 

“And… I don’t know, lights?” Steve continued. “Is it weird that I want lights out here?” 

“Depends on the lights, I think,” Pepper chimed in. “Are you talking fairy lights? Tiki torches? Paper lanterns?” 

Robbie flailed his arms again, kicked, and let out an extensive, “ _ waaaaaaaaah! _ ”

Bucky translated, “The kid’s into it too.”

Steve smiled and crossed the patio so he could ask Robbie himself, “Do you like this house, sweetheart?”

Robbie stuck his hand in his mouth. 

God, Bucky could’ve pulled Steve into a kiss right then and there. The feeling had been occurring more and more lately; before, the thought of kissing Steve sent shivers through his limbs and made heat pool in his groin. A kiss opened the door to other things, sexy things. 

Now Bucky wanted to kiss Steve just for the sake of kissing him, because Steve’s face was stupid and the way he looked at Robbie was stupid and so obviously he had to kiss the guy to make it go away. 

Why had he agreed to move in with Steve again? This had not been his brightest idea. 

Steve stood upright and looked Bucky in the eye. 

“What do you think?” he asked. 

_ That we should call it quits before I kiss your face and fuck all of this up, why? _

“I stand by my original statement. I think this is it,” Bucky said. 

_ You pussy. _

But Steve nodded and turned to Pepper, “You heard the man, Peps. I think we found it.”

“I’ll call the city, make sure they’re ready for the parade,” Pepper returned, all smiles herself. 

_ Well, here we go. _

**oo**

Moving was its own special kind of nightmare. It had been one thing to move all of his crap into his parents’ garage; there it all went in the same place. Bucky had chucked his mattress, sold most of his furniture, but Steve, who owned actual furniture, was another story. Along with furniture, Steve had accumulated a massive amount of stuff over the years. He had art supplies, clothes, collectibles of all kinds, pots and pans and appliances galore. 

Luckily, Steve was the kind of person who rallied people to the cause. Moving was much less of a pain when you had people like Thor, who could carry a whole refrigerator on his back, for instance. Just about everyone from the shop had come to help for at least an hour or two. Tony even showed up with a stack of pizzas around noon, at which point the moving stopped so lunch could be eaten. 

They set up in what would be the dining room, pulling in chairs and boxes to sit around the small dining table from Steve’s apartment. Thor, Natasha, Clint, Tony, and Bruce all had dedicated their entire day to schlepping Steve and Bucky’s shit from moving van to various parts of the house. 

“Where’s the kid?” Tony asked. 

“With my folks,” Bucky replied, his mouth full of pizza crust. 

Mom and dad had been ecstatic when they’d realized they would have unfettered access to their grandson. It was actually kind of nice to have a break from the constant push and pull of fatherhood. He’d slept a full ten hours the first night he’d stayed with them, and after that he’d eaten a full breakfast and fallen back asleep for another three hours. 

It made the moment he saw Robbie again all the more satisfying. 

God, Bucky couldn’t wait for the kid to get here. He had plans for Robbie’s room. When Bucky was a kid, his room had been sacred; he wanted to afford Robbie the same luxury of having a space that was completely his own. Every kid needed a place where they could play, could explore the deep recesses of their imagination, and later on a place to pull their pud to their heart’s content without fear of being caught. 

Which brought Bucky back to his original point: sacred space. 

“So,” Tony piped up again, “Next question: who gets the master bedroom?”

“Guy that bought the house,” Bucky shrugged. “Plus, hall bathroom’s got a better crapper than the master anyway.” 

“In your dreams,” Steve shot back. “You only like that bathroom because it’s got a tub and you have a bath bomb addiction.” 

“You say that like I’m supposed to be embarrassed,” Bucky said. 

“That you’re the sole consumer keeping Lush in business?” Steve asked. “Not to shame you in your own home, but… I’m gonna go ahead and shame you in your own home.”

“Sorry, Steve, I can’t hear you over the sound of how baby smooth my skin is,” Bucky stuck his arm out and dragged the back of his hand over Steve’s cheek. 

“You sure that’s not just the exorbitant amount of Jergens you use with your right hand?” Steve smacked Bucky’s hand away, and Bucky broke into a filthy grin. 

“Eaugh,” Bruce grimaced. “Would both of you just take the master together and put us out of our misery, please?” 

Silence fell faster than the rate of gravity, at which point Bruce looked around and realized, “Oh, did I say that outloud?”

“That you did, big guy,” Tony clapped him on the shoulder, “And I love the hell outta you for it.” 

Had Bucky blinked, he would’ve missed the smile that quirked up on Bruce’s face. Not even the biggest space case could miss the way Bruce leaned into Tony’s hand when it moved from his shoulder to his head. Meanwhile, Clint glanced to Natasha, who stared intently at Steve, who’d gone red as a boiled lobster. 

“Christ, would you schmucks grow up already?” Bucky asked and stood. He plucked his paper plate off of the table and continued, “I pay you to sit around and look pretty five days a week; the least you could do is pitch in a little effort in your spare time.”

While everyone went back to their plates, Steve locked eyes with Bucky. They knew just about every single one of the other’s faces, what twitches and head tilts and eye contact all meant, but Bucky had, to the best of his knowledge, never seen this look from Steve before. 

By the grace of god, Steve’s phone began to buzz on the table, breaking their awkward staring contest. Steve glanced at the caller ID and immediately answered. 

“Hey, mom,” he greeted and stood. He walked right past Bucky, through the kitchen and toward the back door, “No, you’re fine. We were just having lunch. What’s up?” 

The back door shut. Bucky watched it for a few moments, unsure, before turning back to find all of his friends staring directly at him.

“What the fuck?” he drew back slightly. “How long were you creeps planning on staring at me like that?” 

Clint shrugged, “‘til you turned around,” and went back to his pizza. 

“I know I’ve already expressed this, but I’m just going to go ahead and do it again,” said Natasha. “This is a dumb idea.” 

“And I’ve already expressed  _ this _ , but I’ll say it again,” Bucky countered, “Your concerns have been noted and filed with the proper departments. We appreciate your time and business now kindly fuck the fucking fuck off.”

“Bucky--”

“No,” Bucky held up a finger, silencing Natasha from any further interruption.

“Well, I for one am happy for you, Bucky,” Thor piped up. “Family is very important and I’m glad to see you building yours with your son and your lover.”

“They’re not dating, Thor,” Bruce reminded him--a statement that seemed to genuinely startle Thor. 

“Still?” he asked. 

“Okay,” Bucky sighed and pushed his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair. 

“But you’ve bought a house together,” Thor argued. 

“People buy houses together all the time, guys,” Bucky told them, but even before he could finish his sentence he knew it was a lie. He met the skeptical gazes of each person and scowled back, “Whatever! Shut up.” 

“You’re blushing,” Tony pointed out. 

“Am not!” Bucky shot back. 

“And you’re really bad at arguing,” Tony said. “And also really bad at not being bright red right now.”

Natasha bit her lips, a futile attempt to hide her impending smile. Thor made no such effort, and laughed outloud. 

“God, you guys are dicks,” Bucky groaned. He chucked the plate in a black trashbag that had so far only been filled with newspapers and cardboard-covered tape, remnants of the unpacking that Peggy had done when she’d stopped by earlier that morning. 

The back door opened up again and Steve stepped inside. He still had the phone pressed to his ear. He looked at Bucky and asked, “You cool if my parents come visit the week of my birthday?”

Bucky quirked an eyebrow, but before he could reply, Steve held up a finger. 

“Oh,” he said. “No, that’s fine. I figured you would’ve--yeah… I’m not saying you’re not, good grief!”

Sarah Rogers: the only human around whom Steve still would not take the Lord’s name in vain. 

“Okay.  _ Okay _ .... Fine. I love you, bye.”

Steve hung up and slid his phone back into his pocket. 

“What was that?” Bucky asked. 

“They’re gonna be here that whole week, but apparently they’re staying with your parents,” Steve said. 

Bucky’s eyebrows crunched, “Really? Why?” 

“They  _ miss their friends _ ,” Steve made a vague hand gesture that made Bucky think ‘spirit fingers’. 

“Hey man, no skin off my ass,” Bucky threw his hands up. “We’re gonna be up to our balls in unpacking for weeks. Let ‘em go have fun with my folks, that’ll keep my mom off my back for a week.”

“Wait, you have parents?” Clint asked Steve, to which Steve responded with a glare. 

“You think I just fell out of the sky, or something?” he countered. “How high are you?” 

“No, I just never hear you talk about ‘em,” Clint shrugged. “I was being funny. I thought I was, anyway.”

“I thought it was funny,” Natasha reached over and patted him on the shoulder.  

The conversation turned back to small talk after that, at which point Bucky felt free to make eye contact with Steve again. Something was off; normally Steve was stoked on seeing his parents. 

Everybody went back to moving boxes shortly after they’d finished their pizza. Well, everyone except Steve. He’d retreated out to the patio again, sitting criss-cross on the concrete with his phone in his hand. Bucky sat beside him and hugged his knees, waiting for Steve. 

When it turned out that Steve would in no way be the first to speak, Bucky sighed and said, “What’s on your mind, man?” 

“I don’t know,” Steve admitted. “Just got kinda bummed out.”

Bucky nodded and rested his chin on his knees. 

“Well, on the bright side, we’ll be able to swear freely,” he pointed out, and Steve snorted. 

“Yeah, I guess so,” he mumbled and leaned back on his hands. “Maybe it’s just the move, man. I barely slept last night.”

Bucky hummed, “Yeah, I’m with you. But hey, the kid’ll be here tonight, we can set up the living room and the TV and watch a movie… Nice quiet night in after a long-ass day.” 

Steve nodded, eyes fixed on the redwood fence and the jacaranda and the flagstone and the bright blue sky before them. 

“I like this place,” he told Bucky. 

“Good, ‘cause fuck moving,” Bucky said. “We’re here until the day we die, man. I’m not moving my shit again.” 

“Dude, more than half of it is mine,” Steve laughed.

“Still,” Bucky shrugged, then knocked against Steve’s shoulders with his. A warm silence fell between them, lasting only a few moments before Bucky said, “Thank you, by the way. For all of this.”

Steve’s cheeks went pink.

“I mean, I’ve been wanting to get out of that apartment for a while… never felt the same after you left. Or, moved out,” Steve corrected himself. “Just… I don’t know. I missed you, I guess.” 

“You see me every day, dingus,” Bucky shot back, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt. 

“I know,” Steve said, refusing to make eye contact. “S’not the same though. I liked living with you.” 

The words hit Bucky harder than Steve probably intended. Being Catholic and Jewish respectively, both Steve and Bucky were more than familiar with guilt. Hell, guilt was their true first language, so deeply ingrained that Steve probably didn’t even realize just how deeply those words just cut. 

Not knowing what else to say, Bucky looped an arm around his shoulder and told him, “Well, I’m back with you now. And there’s a baby, but whatever. He’s cool. Pees in my face a lot, but he’s good. Likes you more than he likes me, probably.” 

Steve laughed and Bucky’s chest flooded instantly with relief.

“Nah,” Steve shook his head. “You’re a good dad, Buck. The kid loves you and you love him.”

“And we love you,” Bucky squeezed Steve’s shoulder. Now more than ever, the urge to kiss Steve and hold him even closer burned deep in his gut. He had to know that of anyone, Bucky wouldn’t trust anyone else to be in his kid’s life like this. 

“Thanks,” Steve hummed and-- _ fuck _ \--scooted closer. 

“Yep,” Bucky confirmed, trying to keep his voice level. “You’re stuck with us, asshole.”

Steve snorted and shoved at Bucky. 

But he didn’t move away. 

 

* * *

 

First things first: Steve made his bed. 

It may not have seemed like a big deal, but flopping down in a freshly made bed was one of Steve’s great joys in life. Everyone had cleared out about an hour ago, leaving Steve and Bucky to finish the last of their setup before Robbie got home. 

Bucky had collapsed on the couch and had been napping since the front door last closed. Settling into his down comforter and pile of pillows, Steve guessed he wouldn’t be far behind. He pushed his glasses off of his face and let his eyes slip shut. Exhaustion seeped into every part of him, but god, it felt good. 

He lived with Bucky again. 

Steve couldn’t dance for shit, but damn if he wouldn’t try, he was so happy.

It felt nice to be this close to Bucky. He liked knowing that, if he wanted, he could just go right down the hall and see his best friend’s face. 

Steve rested a hand on his stomach and stretched one arm up above to frame his head. Warmth filled him up, settling into every nook and cranny, and overflowed. He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling since he talked with Bucky after lunch. The arm around his shoulder felt nice, like no matter what happened Bucky would make sure they came out of everything okay. 

Bucky always kept Steve safe. 

Steve realized then that his hand was drifting. His fingers hit the elastic of his basketball shorts and suddenly he was very aware of the heat from his hand soaking into his skin. Interest prickled in his groin, and with a quick look around his mostly empty room, knowing that Bucky was out like a light, he deemed it safe to roll down his waistband and continue. 

It felt good to touch himself. He’d been a wreck the last few days and hadn’t really had the time or energy to put into getting off. He ran his fingerpads over the wiry hairs below his belly button and just like that his senses ignited. Man, he must’ve really been pent up. 

Steve’s cock rapidly began to thicken, sending another pulse of pleasure up his spine. He slid his shorts down over his hips and sighed at the feel of the cool air on his heated skin. How had he not realized he was this horny? Fuck’s sake, just the drag of a single digit up his length was enough to tease a soft groan out of him. 

Shit. 

He couldn’t wake up Bucky. What a great first night in the house that would be. The last thing he needed was for Bucky to appear at the door and see Steve with a hand around his prick. 

Said prick twitched at the idea. Whatever blood hadn’t gone south rapidly fled north to his cheeks. Would Bucky avert his eyes and run in the other direction? Would he give him some pithy quip and leave Steve to his business? Or would his eyes linger on Steve’s hand in its slick, methodical slide up and down his shaft? 

Yeah, Steve liked that last one. 

Steve’s eyes popped open. 

He was not… absolutely  _ not  _ going to jerk off while thinking about his best friend. That was insane. 

… but also, Steve had seen that look in Bucky’s eyes. Just being in the vicinity of the Bucky Barnes’ Sex Stare did things to Steve’s insides, which Steve had figured was due to Bucky’s magnetism. Now, though? The thought of being on the other end of that stare, of being the one that made Bucky’s silvery eyes go dark and made him break out into that Cheshire Cat grin…. 

Steve caught the wetness at the tip of his dick and slicked what he could. When that didn’t work as planned, he licked the palm of his hand and  _ god yeah _ , that was it. He arched into the sensation, and suddenly Bucky was on his bed, between his legs and licking his lips, eyes darting between Steve’s eyes and his erection. Bucky did have pretty lips, and they would probably look better all wet. 

And god knows they’d look gorgeous wrapped around the head of his cock. 

_ “Fuck _ !” Steve yelped, completely caught off guard as his orgasm hit him like a freight train. He clapped his free hand over his mouth as he rode it out, trying like hell to keep any noises at bay and just breathe through it but  _ holy hell _ it felt so good. He could feel his come bleeding through his thin cotton t-shirt and sticking to his skin, but he didn’t care. All he wanted was to bask in this glow, to float down from this high like a feather in a summer breeze. 

Steve couldn’t remember the last time this had so incredible. 

Or the last time he’d popped off that fast, for that matter, goddamn. 

It wasn’t until the sound of the doorbell hit his ears that Steve realized what he’d just done. He lept off his bed and quickly stashed the evidence, switching out his moving clothes for another set. 

“Just a sec!” he called down the hall. 

“Christ, Steve, it’s just my parents,” Bucky called back, voice gravelly from sleep. The sound sent chills down his spine and made a low, warm fire deep in his belly at the same time. 

He’d just jerked off to his best friend. 

Oh, boy. 

Steve took an extra second to splash cold water on his face, praying that something would make his post-orgasm flush disappear, but nope. His lily white Irish skin was just hell-bent on ratting him out. 

He leaned in closer to the mirror. What the hell was on his--oh shit. In addition to painting up his shirt, he’d nailed himself right below his Adam’s apple. He swiped the sticky spot of come with a toilet paper square, but that left a red blotch out of place on his neck and-- 

“Steve?”

Steve nearly leapt a foot in the air. There in the doorway of his bathroom stood Bucky, still in his same clothes, with his hands braced on either side of the doorjamb. His hair curled out of its bun, falling in tendrils around his face, at the base of his skull. How in everloving hell had Steve never noticed that this man was sex on two legs? 

“Hey,” Steve let out a breath. 

Smooth. 

Bucky raised an eyebrow, “You okay?”

Steve nodded, head jerking a little too hard, and Bucky broke into that fucking grin.

“Steve Rogers, were you playing with yourself in your new bedroom?” 

Steve was going to pass out if his blood didn’t keep rushing to his face. 

“You were,” Bucky’s eyes lit up. “Didn’t even take you five minutes to christen the room, huh?” 

“I can last longer than five minutes,” Steve rolled his eyes, only to realize, shit, that was not what Bucky was saying. “You meant five minutes of us being in the house, didn’t you?” 

“I did,” Bucky nodded, still grinning like the asshole he was. “But good to know you’re confident in your stamina.” 

Steve groaned. 

They made their way out into the living room, where Winnie sat with George and Robbie on Steve’s red Goodwill couch. Robbie sat on George’s lap while Winnie made faces at him, and he laughed and flailed his arms and legs and  _ god _ it just made Steve’s heart swell so much that it hurt. 

“See?” Bucky scooped Robbie up into his arms and brought him over to Steve. “Didn’t I say Uncle Steve was here?”

As soon as Steve came into his line of sight, Robbie made a reach for him. 

“Hey kid,” Steve smiled as Bucky passed the baby to him. Robbie smiled that toothless smile and, as was his new favorite hobby, tried to grab Steve’s glasses off of his face. 

“And the best part is,” Bucky leaned in close to Robbie’s ear, “He never has to go home at the end of the night, because this is his home. It’s  _ our _ home, all three of us.” 

_ Ours.  _

Boy, did that sound nice. 


	6. Chapter 6

The last couple of weeks had been busy. Between unpacking and setting up the house and getting Robbie acclimated to the new environment, there was barely enough time to breathe. Plus, now there was a little pull in Steve’s stomach every time Bucky stood too close, one to which Steve was seeing fewer and fewer downsides. He was used to the feeling, in a way; he’d felt that pull ever since they were kids, when Bucky was the only friend he’d ever had. Now, though? Now that pull was a million times stronger.

He’d liked living with Bucky before. He never thought he’d like living with anyone as much. Turns out, living with both Bucky and Robbie was even better. It had only been a couple of weeks and Steve was already accustomed to seeing them both in the morning. He liked working around Bucky in the kitchen, making coffee and lunches and light, drowsy chitchat. He loved getting to tuck Robbie in at night, knowing that his and Bucky’s faces would be both the last he saw that night and the first when he woke up the next morning.

It was odd to realize that you could absolutely do something like that for the rest of your life.

With all that, July fourth came faster than they had expected. That morning, Steve floated up into consciousness in no particular hurry. He woke early enough that gloom still blanketed the valley, but not so early that he was the first to rise--not if the smell of bacon and potatoes was anything to go by, at least. Steve stretched his limbs and rolled out of bed, his hunger taking the lead as he followed his nose to the kitchen.

Their living room wasn’t much still--they had their TV and a couch, had hung a couple of prints and paintings Steve had collected from art shows over the years, but the wide open space left plenty of room to spread out Robbie’s blankets and toys for the ever-important ‘tummy time’.

Bucky had made a hobby out of buying ridiculous clothes for his child, including the onesie he was currently wearing: white with blue spangled suspenders and a red-and-white striped bowtie attached to the neck, and written on the front (which Steve only knew because he’d seen it the day before) was “Daddy’s Little Firecracker”.

To add the finishing touch, perched atop his head, nestled in the baby-soft tangle of deep, dark curls, sat a red, white, and blue party hat.

Steve got down on his stomach and leveled his line of sight with Robbie’s. A moment passed, then Robbie’s face lit up.

“Hey, sweet boy,” he said, smiling back. “You’re looking pretty spiffy this morning.”

Robbie returned with a high-pitched screech.

“Aw,” Steve laughed, “did daddy dress you like a total tool?”

“Hey!” Bucky shouted from the kitchen. “I can hear you, asshole.”

“Good,” Steve shot back, still grinning from ear to ear.

Robbie repeated with a strong, staccato, “ _Uh_!”

Still in the kitchen, Bucky called, “It’s okay Robbie, don’t listen to that queer.”

A zing of panic bolted through Steve at the speed of light.

“What--you!” he exclaimed, adrenaline fueling every move as he shot up to his knees. “You’re the one who’s… you!”

Bucky then appeared with two plates of pancakes and potatoes and bacon piled high and took a seat next to Robbie and Steve on the floor. He set one plate beside Steve and immediately tucked into his own.  

With a full mouth, he said, “Happy birthday, shithead. Eat your pancakes.”

Steve huffed a laugh. “Thanks, Buck,” he said and sat back down. Robbie, meanwhile, looked in awe at the pile of food on Steve’s plate. He opened his mouth and tried to come at it with all the gusto of a starving tortoise seeing its first lettuce leaf. Unlike a tortoise, Robbie rapidly lost strength in his arms and smacked down on his blanket.

“Oh, bud,” Bucky chuckled and sat his own plate down. “That was one hell of a faceplant, huh?”

“Ah-ba- _bah_!” Robbie babbled and pushed himself up again. He looked at his dad and smiled when he repeated, “Faceplant!”

Robbie let out a little laugh and Steve immediately melted. Bucky pulled Robbie into his lap and snuggled him close.

“I love you so much,” he murmured into Robbie’s hair, knocking the party hat askew.

“Kiss-ass,” Steve shot back.

“Schmuck,” Bucky flipped him off, then pressed their cheeks together and repeated, “Don’t listen to that queer.”

Steve rolled his eyes and hoped his face wasn’t as red as it felt, and to avoid eye contact picked up his breakfast and went to town.

Steve may have loved to cook, but Bucky had spent most of his childhood dangling from his mom’s proverbial apron strings. He could cook without a recipe, putting together foods and flavors with an innate sense that Steve did not have.

“Fuck, these are good,” Steve said around a mouthful.

“You’re welcome,” Bucky hummed, still too busy cuddling his son to do much of anything else.

“I didn’t say thank you,” Steve pointed out.

“I know,” Bucky grinned.

They finished their breakfast in amiable silence, then took to preparing for the rest of the day. Steve started prepping for the afternoon grill-a-thon, while Bucky took Robbie outside and warned him _not to come out_ under penalty of death. Of course, Dickhead Magee didn’t realize that there were windows in the kitchen that looked directly out onto the back patio, so Steve could see everything anyway.

Red, white, and blue streamers lined the rafters and wove in and out of the lattice trellis that Steve _would_ one day cover with vines, damn it. Bucky blew up balloons, set up ice chests full of drinks and big bowls of just about every snack imaginable.

People began to arrive around noon. Pepper and Tony were the first to stroll through the door, shoulders squared and confidence oozing out of every pore between the two of them, followed closely by their quiet, introverted husband who curled in on himself like he’d been rolled up and bound over night. He’d been charged with holding the case of that snotwad, ritzy beer they’d brought with them.

Tony let out a low whistle.

“Gotta say,” he said, “With you guys moved in and everything, this place looks…”

Tony searched for the words, while Pepper gave him a sharp look and a very clear “Don’t.”

“Shitty,” Tony finished. “The place still looks shitty.”

Steve could’ve decked him, but Bruce stepped in and did it for him.

“Ow!” Tony shouted. “Don’t punch me while I’m holding beer, dickhead!”

“Don’t be a putz,” Bruce countered.  

“That’s a tall order,” Steve let out a laugh.

Pepper smirked, “That’s why he can never fill it.”

She held up a hand, measuring height, and Tony scowled.

“I am half an inch shorter than you, asshole,” he shot back.

“And a glorious half inch it is,” Pepper gave a pleased sigh and grabbed the beer, making her way outside to where Bucky had set up a cooler.

Bruce shuffled the extra two steps and rested his forehead on Tony’s shoulder.

“How you doin’ big guy?” Tony asked and wrapped an arm around him. “Still tired?”

Bruce nodded and turned so his entire body was in Tony’s embrace. From his vantage point, Steve could tell that Tony was whispering some private, intimate something-or-other that made Bruce’s shoulders drop.

Steve swallowed hard, but didn’t get a chance to think on the interaction before Sam and Riley showed up with a large catering dish.

“Mac ‘n’ cheese,” Riley announced, “Because, bless your hearts, you can’t make a good mac ‘n’ cheese to save your lives.”

At Steve’s look, Sam shrugged and came forward for a hug, “Couldn’t have stopped him if I tried, man. Happy birthday, have a heart attack.”

“Pff,” Riley rolled his eyes, “Can’t die if you haven’t lived. Eat your goddamn food and shut the fuck up.”

Clint and Natasha showed up not long after, followed by Thor and his girlfriend Jane, with Darcy in tow. Peggy strolled in next, elegant as ever, with a gift on one arm and her purse on the other.

God, how’d she always look so _good_?

“Happy birthday, love,” she greeted and pecked Steve on the cheek.

“Thanks, Pegs,” Steve smiled back. She still smelled like light floral body lotion and sweet, clean shampoo.

“You’ve done all right, haven’t you?” she said as she checked around the room.

“Yeah, it’s been an adjustment, but,” Steve shrugged, “I’m already liking it.”

“Good,” Peggy returned warmly and placed a hand on his cheek. “I’m glad he’s here with you.”

A knowing glint in her eyes set something rumbling in the pit of Steve’s stomach, just like it had in that first day of Modern Art History. Steve had been a wet-behind-the-ears nineteen year old virgin at the time, hadn’t been able to speak two words to a girl without sweating through his clothes.

She broke him of that right quick.

He had fun with Peggy. If the feelings were just a little different, if their circumstances and lives had aligned properly, they might still be together.

“Steve?” Peggy asked, pulling him back to earth.

“Yeah,” Steve said, “I’m here. What’s up?”

Peggy let out a soft chuckle, “Hopeless as ever.”

This time, Peggy pecked him on the lips, the same as she had on the night when they’d realized, _this isn’t going to work, is it?_

God, Steve would have married her in a second.

They loved one another, but each wouldn’t put the other through a life that made them miserable. From day one Peggy had made it clear that marriage was absolutely out of the question for her. Knowing this, they’d ignored it for as long as possible.

It was an amicable separation, but a separation nonetheless, and the only person Steve wanted to be around for months afterward had been the same person who’d up and moved out of their apartment for no fucking reason.

Steve shut his eyes and pretended the thought of Bucky’s arms around him wasn’t the most comforting thing he’d felt all day.

Mom and dad were the last to arrive with George and Winnie in tow. Only a couple of days in L.A. and mom and dad had both gotten a lot of sun. Like Steve, mom’s face exploded with freckles after even a minute of sunshine. Dad’s hair had lightened considerably, and his skin was just a shade shy of a sunburn.

Mom came right in for a hug, squeezing him way too tightly in that way that moms do. She hummed, relieved even twenty-seven years later to be holding her living, breathing son in her arms.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” she said and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Historically dad was more contained, had always been a ‘handshake and a curt nod’ kind of guy, but in recent years he’d softened. Now he gave these great big bear hugs that were not all that unlike those of George Barnes.

Leave it to the Barnes family to turn a set of stiffs into affectionate, touchy-feely people.

“Happy birthday, kiddo,” dad greeted warmly. “You’ve got one helluva yard to work on, huh?”

“ _There_ it is,” Steve gave a resigned nod.

It wasn’t a party until Joe Rogers criticized your lack of yard upkeep.

“Oh, stop it,” mom gave dad a smack on the arm. “They’ve been here for all of five minutes.”

“What, you can’t mow a lawn in that time?” Joe asked, and under threat of being smacked again, stuck up his hands. At this point, Bucky appeared at the mouth of the hallway with Robbie in his arms.

Cue Winnie’s gasp of delight and outstretched arms.

“Is that the most beautiful boy in the world?” she cooed, not waiting for any sort of response before she plucked Robbie from Bucky’s hold and brought him to Sarah and Joe.

“Oh, my word,” mom breathed at the first sight of Robbie’s face. “Look at you, you are just cuter than anything! I’m so happy to finally meet you.”

Robbie regarded Sarah warily for a few seconds, but mom kept smiling and kept making these soothing sounds, and soon Robbie was smiling broadly as ever.

“I know,” Winnie fawned. “Isn’t he sweet?”

At which point Bucky flicked his arms out to the side and butted in, “Hey mom, nice to see you.”

“Don’t be a shit,” Steve warned.

Which then prompted dad to turn and scold Steve with a firm, “Be nice to your husband.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and walked away, but Steve? Steve’s eyes bugged out and his face went hot. Had his heart been beating this quickly before? Oh god, had it _ever_ beaten this fast before? Nope. This was it. His heart was going to Kool-Aid Man right out of his chest and Steve was going to die here with a big heart-shaped hole in his sternum.

“He’s… not,” was the most eloquent thing that came out of Steve’s mouth. It didn’t matter, though. Dad saw right through it, just like he always did.

“Relax,” Bucky rolled his eyes, seemingly unfazed. “He’s giving you a hard time, asshole.”

Only one look to dad told Steve that, no, it wasn’t just a typical Joe Rogers razz. Dad knew. Holy fuck how did dad _know_ ? Steve barely even knew, for god’s sake. Knew… _knew_ … Steve knew exactly what dad knew but the words wouldn’t come to him. Was he having a stroke? Was there an aneurism right on his frontal lobe?

Or did he just not want to admit to it, thinking willful ignorance was best?

Jesus, what the fuck was _happening_ to him?

And why in the hell was he looking to Bucky for some comforting expression? This was all his fault, damn it.

Steve let out a breath.

It wasn’t Bucky’s fault; it was his fault.

Rather than ruminate, Steve snapped out of his trance when dad slapped him on the shoulder and said, “Whaddya say you show me that new grill of yours?”

Steve nodded, numb, but had the wherewithal to escort dad out back to the patio.

To his credit, dad let Steve take the lead. Steve had already prepped most of the burgers and steaks and had come up with a game plan. All that was left was the cooking, and as was tradition with any Rogers cook-out, you couldn’t start grilling without a beer in your hand.

The back door opened and closed again. Bruce shuffled out to the deck and curled up in one of the patio chairs.

“You okay, man?” Steve asked.

“Are any of us?” Bruce countered and pushed the dark curls off of his forehead. He nodded at the beer in Steve’s hand. “Got anymore of those?”

Steve shrugged, “Depends. You gonna grill?”

Bruce blinked his eyes, so saturated with brown that they were almost black, and rubbed the back of his neck.

“I never have,” he said.

“Dad never taught you how to grill?” dad asked this time, checking on the hot dogs.

“Uh, no,” Bruce sat up a little straighter now. “My family didn’t really do the whole cook-out thing.”

“Really,” dad said more than asked. “Well, get your ass up and get over here, son.”

Bruce shot Steve a cautionary look before he rose from his seat and stepped over to the grill. He walked Bruce through the basics, and though he wasn’t quite as entranced as Steve remembered being when he first grilled with his dad, Bruce radiated satisfaction.

Of course dad would choose that moment to deliver the sucker punch.

“You have to tell him, Steve,” dad said, voice calm, level. Anxiety crashed back into Steve like a tsunami, pulling back from his person only to slam back into him harder than ever. His chest had become an iron cage, ruthless and unforgiving and unable to expand to lung capacity.

“Whoa,” Bruce set down his beer and came to put two steadying hands on his biceps. “Steve, you’re okay.”

“Ah, shit,” Steve heard dad say. “Steve, breathe.”

Steve shook his head.

Suddenly he was 5’4” again, wafer thin and constantly two seconds away from his next hospital visit.

Someone guided him into a chair.

“Steve, look at me.”

Bruce.

Steve locked eyes with him, somewhat entranced by the way Bruce’s thick eyelashes fluttered behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

“Good,” Bruce continued, “You’re doing well, Steve. Now, you can nod yes or shake your head no for this part, but I’m going to need you to speak after.”

Steve nodded once.

“Good,” Bruce hummed again, “Have you ever played 54321?”

Steve shook his head.

“Okay, that’s okay,” Bruce soothed. “It’s simple. First round is: I want you to name five things you can see out here.”

Steve’s eyes darted. What could he see? Fuck, there was so much.

“The first thing,” Bruce said, “There’s no wrong answer.”

“Table,” Steve’s voice shook. “Ch-chair…”

“Good, three more,” Bruce encouraged.

“Grill,” Steve took in a gasping breath, “Bird feeder, tongs.”

“Good,” Bruce repeated, a zen mantra that already had Steve feeling a little better. “This next round, I want you to name four things you can feel.”

“My heart,” Steve let out a silent laugh. “Your hands on my shoulders. The sun on my leg. My arms on the armrests.”

“Good,” Bruce’s voice was soft, like velvet. “What about three things you can hear?”

Steve focused in. The backyard was peaceful, quiet, but even here there were ambient noises.

“Birds,” Steve said. “And the stuff on the grill sizzling. And my dad drinking.”

He caught the world’s loudest drinker’s eye over Bruce’s shoulder and felt himself smile.

“Good,” Bruce chuckled. “Two things you can smell.”

“Hot dogs,” Steve swallowed. “And you… whatever deodorant or soap you’re using, I guess. S’nice.”

“Old Spice, and thank you,” Bruce grinned. “Last thing: one good thing about yourself.”

Without even thinking, Steve replied, “I have feelings for Bucky, don’t I.”

There it was, out in the open, floating around them like some noxious cloud. He didn’t know what reaction he expected, didn’t even know how he felt about it himself.

“Well gee, Steve, what was your first fucking clue?” Bruce asked, voice no longer zen.

Cue the shattered glass sound effect.

“Wait, what?” Steve’s face screwed up.

“I swear to god,” dad muttered under his breath and looked heavenward. “Kid, I love you more than you will ever know, but sometimes you are slower than molasses in winter.”

When Steve cocked his head, Bruce rolled his eyes and declared, “We all know, you asshole. And if we didn’t know before this whole debacle, the buying a house for your best friend thing? Yeah, not exactly subtle.”

“Wh--” Steve’s mind raced to keep up, “How long have you known?”

“I don’t know,” dad shrugged, “How long’ve you known the guy?”

Bruce tried to stifle his laugh, but failed.

“Nice, dad,” Steve shot back.

“Steve,” Bruce sighed, “I’m surprised any of us can even breathe in the shop, there’s so much sexual tension in there.”

“Not--” Steve cut himself off. Who was he kidding? It was sexual tension. Not that he’d ever explicitly thought about sex with Bucky… not until recently at least. Like, maybe kissing him or something, but who hasn’t thought about kissing their best friend? Or doing nice things for their best friend, or hugging them and holding them when they’re sad? Sex was secondary, _tertiary_ , even. It always had been. The most sexual attraction he’d ever felt in a relationship was with Peggy, and even then he’d had to work up to the actual sex part.

Bucky? Bucky lived and breathed sex. It ranked right up there with oxygen and water and food. Without sex, Bucky was sure to die.

“You okay?” Bruce asked.

“Is there something wrong with me?” Steve blurted.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” said dad. “You were a weird kid and you turned into a weird adult.”

“With sex,” Steve swallowed. “And relationships. Am I weird?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce shrugged. “Some people just don’t have a high sex drive.”

Steve snorted, “I got a trash can full of tissues that’ll rebuff that.”

“Delightful,” dad nodded.

“Maybe you’re on the ace spectrum,” Bruce suggested. “You should come join us. It’s nice over here.”

Steve cocked his head.

“You… you’re married,” Steve said.

“I know.”

“To Tony,” Steve informed him.

“And Pepper, but yes, I’m aware,” Bruce folded his arms. “I’m demisexual. I thought I was ace for a really long time, but I find demisexual fits better. I like sex, but only if I really know and like the person.”

Steve’s nose wrinkled, while Joe let out another cough, likely just so the boys wouldn’t forget he was there.

“Tony,” he repeated. “You like Tony for his personality?”

“I know, it’s disgusting,” Bruce brushed the thought aside. “But my point stands. Sometimes the sexual feelings don’t come until the chest feelings are already there.”

“Is that what that is?” dad asked, and Steve and Bruce both turned their eyes to him. Upon realizing the implications, dad shook his head, “No, not me. Your mom. She’s been saying all… that. Not in so many words, but that sentiment, for years. Only ever had eyes for me.”

Steve frowned.

“You guys met in grad school,” Steve said. “You were in your thirties.”

“Told me she’d never felt attracted to anyone the way she was attracted to me,” dad recalled almost wistfully. “I may have been her first and I hope to be her last, but trust me: it’s not because the woman doesn’t like sex.”

Steve grimaced.

“What, I get to know about your masturbatory habits, but you can’t know that your mother has only had sex with me?”

Steve gagged on nothing. Melodramatic? Maybe, but he was so done having this conversation.

“Okay, we’re straying,” Bruce waved his hands. He said to Steve, “You have feelings for Bucky.”

Steve gave a slow, deliberate nod.

“You are… what?” Bruce guessed. “Not that you have to identify right now, but…”

Steve frowned, taking a moment to decide, “Bisexual, I guess.”

Yeah, that sounded right.

Twenty-seven years old and still cobbling together his identity. How about that?

“And you’re okay with that?” Bruce asked.

Steve shrugged.

“I stand by my original statement,” dad told him. “You have to tell him.”

Steve’s heart picked up again and he shook his head. No, no, no, that was… no, that wasn’t happening. He would tell Bucky anything, trusted him above everyone in his life, but he would not tell him that.

Bruce rubbed at his temples.

“Steve, you can’t just not tell him,” dad then scolded. “For god’s sake, you live together. It’s going to come up.”

“It can’t,” Steve shook his head. “He can’t know. He’ll…”

Steve felt his core start to tremble. He folded over on himself and took a shaky breath.

 _If I tell him, he’ll leave again_.

“Hey,” Bruce sat down in the chair beside Steve’s. “You don’t have to tell him right now. You can’t just not tell him, though. It’s not fair to either of you.”

“Not yet,” Steve insisted.

“Not yet,” Bruce agreed. “One step at a time.”

**oo**

Convivial joy filled the house and the backyard as the afternoon bled into evening. The smell of the grill brought everyone outside, the uncharacteristic mildness of the weather convinced them to stay.

At least Robbie was asleep in the house when Steve and Bucky paused in their celebration to take out the garbage. He didn’t want Robbie to see the look on their faces when they caught dad and George by the trashcans with Clint, all three smoking the biggest joint Steve had ever  seen.

“Fuck’s sake, ma!” Bucky shouted toward the patio, only two steps behind Steve. “Get a hold of your dope fiend husband and his ward, please! You too, Tash!”

“You do it!” Natasha yelled back. “Your mother and I are having a discussion!”

Bucky heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes skyward as Steve admonished, “Dad, what the hell?!”

Both dad and George were silent for a few moments, looking to one another before dad pinched out, “Helps my joints,” and exhaled a plume of smoke. George, now red in the face with laughter, shuffled back toward the patio with an arm slung around dad’s shoulders.

Clint, meanwhile, leaned against the side of the house and offered the joint to Steve and Bucky.

“Don’t tell me your dads party harder than you two,” he said.

“Yeah, their kids aren’t infants,” Bucky pointed out and dumped his trash bags in the black bin. “Put that shit out and come get some pie, asshole.”

Clint saluted and spit in his fingers, dousing the joint between them before he followed Bucky and Steve back up to the porch.

The porch, where everyone now sat clustered around mom and, more importantly, her iPad. Steve ventured forward cautiously by one step, two, only for Tony’s eyes to snap up to him at the first sign of movement.

“You were _tail kid_?” Tony yelped, downright gleeful, and Steve tensed.

“N-no?” he replied, only for Bucky and dad both to betray him with a bombastic, _“Hah!”_

Dad grabbed mom’s iPad and turned it toward Steve and, _shit_ , the evidence was pretty damning.

At thirteen, Steve was a bag of bones with eyes too big for his face and thick, square glasses that looked more like they belonged to a nonagenarian than an eighth grader. The picture in question had him in a My Chemical Romance t-shirt, hi-top Converse and, sure enough, clipped to the back of his skinny jeans swung a faux-fox tail.

Steve sighed, “Ugh, _why_?”

Mom just chuckled fondly and replied, “Because I can.”

Bucky snorted.

“Shut up,” Steve muttered.

“Whatever, tail kid,” Bucky grinned back.

“Yeah, and you were friends with the tail kid,” Steve pointed out. “And let’s not forget why: nobody would touch you with a ten foot pole while you were going through your wiccan phase.”

“Shut up!” Clint exclaimed. “Pics or it didn’t happen.”

“Well, too bad for you, I don’t keep puberty pictures on hand,” Bucky crossed his arms.

At that point, Winnie held up a finger and took mom’s iPad from dad, looking to be on a mission.

“Wh--ma, no,” Bucky shook his head. “That’s Sarah’s iPad, you don’t have your pictures on ther--”

“Facebook,” Winnie sing-songed.

“Ma!” Bucky attempted to lurch forward, but Steve grabbed him by the sleeve.

At his look of betrayal, Steve looked Bucky in the eye and replied simply, “Payback.”

“Oh, yes,” Natasha grinned and made a grab for the iPad. “Yes, yes, this is my new favorite picture in the whole world.”

Steve could feel Bucky’s face heat up from where he stood, and held back his laughter when Natasha turned the iPad around for everyone to see.

Acne and grease made up most of eighth grade Bucky’s face and hair. Black lined his upper and lower eyelids, smudged this way and that; baby pudge still covered his belly and arms and--damn, he’d always had thick power thighs, hadn’t he? Black fingernails, black t-shirt, black zipper-and-strap Tripp pants, black boots, camo jacket and pentagrams drawn on the back of both hands.

“What the fuck’s up, Criss Angel?” Tony laughed.

“You shut your whore mouth,” Bucky snapped at him, pointing a finger and everything. Steve snatched his wrist and brought it back down to his side.

“Hang on,” Bruce chimed in. He poked around on his phone for a few seconds before he allowed Bucky to take his phone to observe, “Voila, little Tony.”

Bucky sighed, “I swear if this is a picture of his dick…”

And then Bucky looked at the screen and broke into a massive grin.

Steve had been small growing up, yeah, skinny and sickly, but Tony? At thirteen, Tony looked more like he was nine or ten. His AC/DC shirt looked more like a tent hanging off of his shoulders. He had these round chipmunk cheeks and wore baggy, torn up jeans. In his hands he held some robotic device that, judging by the prideful look in his eye, he had built himself.

“You fucking dweeb,” Bucky beamed up at Tony.

Tony, meanwhile, scowled as his picture was passed around by his friends like a two-dollar whore. Natasha actually let out a squeak of delight when the picture came to her, at which Tony threw up his arms and declared, “Okay, either everyone shows their pube pictures or we admit that we are targeting a select few.”

“Oh, definitely targeting a select few,” Natasha agreed. Tony looked about like he might have a conniption fit until Thor, being his regular Thor self, held out his phone for Tony to take.

“Gaze upon the wreckage that is puberty,” he said and sat back with his hands behind his head. Had Steve not known Thor as he did, he might have assumed that the smirk on Thor’s bloomed out of cocksure pride. However...

“Man,” Tony’s eyebrows went up, looking at the phone handed to him. “You’re…”

He looked up and asked the group at large, “You know those kids everyone thought were gorgeous in middle school, but then you look back and see that, yeah, they were just as awkward as the rest of us?”

Tony turned the phone around.

Rather than his current close-cut tufts and the varying shapes shaved on either side of his head, young Thor had long locks. The picture looked like it had been taken at a baseball game, right as Thor had been taking a base. Bolts of blond hair flashed out behind him, his face screwed up in some sort of Viking warrior cry amid all the dust. Indeed, at first glance Steve knew that Thor would have been one of the “popular guys” at his middle school. The harder he looked, though, he could see the awkward turn in Thor’s limbs, the slight hint of terror in his face when he realized how out of control he truly was in that moment.

Also, even with the lower-quality early 2000s photography, young Thor clearly had an active minefield of acne spotting his face.

“Verily, puberty is a horrible time, my friend,” Thor said as Tony passed back his phone. “Not even the mightiest escape its wrath.”

Steve looked  over just in time to catch dad mouth the word, _‘verily?’_ to him, at which Steve just rolled his eyes and shrugged.

With everyone well and distracted, Bucky had time to slink away and come back with a tub of ice cream and an apple pie with this beautiful golden-brown lattice crust covering the top.

“Holy crap,” Steve couldn’t help but mutter. It looked and smelled almost exactly like--

“Oh, good!” mom chirped and rose to her feet, presumably to help Bucky serve, “I was hoping you got the recipe; you never texted me back.”

Without a thought, Steve tossed out, “Yeah, he does that.”

Bucky shot him a sharp look.

“Need I point out that only one of us has a knife, Rogers,” Bucky brandished the butter knife in his hand, “and it ain’t you.”

“Bucky,” Winnie sighed and rolled her eyes.

“You can’t stab me,” Steve told him. “It’s my birthday.”

“I’m sure he’d stab you if you asked nicely,” Clint shrugged, and cackled when Bucky threw an unopened pack of napkins at his face.

By now, everyone knew that singing wasn’t a part of Steve’s birthday. It hadn’t been since he’d been old enough to notice everyone’s eyes and attention focused solely on him. Every time anyone tried to sing, Steve’s shoulders tensed and left him fizzing and bubbling like a salted slug. Plus, why sing when there was ice cream and pie to be eaten?

As if he knew, Robbie started to cry not two minutes after the first slice of pie had been served. Bucky heaved a sigh, but before he could put down the knife, Steve said, “I got him,” and escaped into the placid coolness of the house.

Robbie’s room was smaller than Bucky’s, with a smattering of glowing stars on the ceiling and a collection of toys around the room, most of which Robbie was still too young to play with. Steve tried to talk sense into Bucky, but it never worked; Bucky was hell-bent on spoiling the kid rotten and beyond.

“Hey, honeybun,” Steve cooed softly, and immediately Robbie’s wails began to recede. Steve plucked him out of the crib and brought him to his chest, He bounced ever so slightly, rocking back and forth from foot to foot until Robbie stopped crying altogether.

“Did you have a good nap?” Steve asked.

Robbie gurgled.

“Good to know,” Steve nodded and stifled a yawn of his own against the back of his hand. “C’mon, if you can’t have pie then at least the fireworks’ll start soon, right?”

Robbie replied with a resounding, _“bah!”_

It was dusk now, which meant fireworks would be underway any minute now. Upon returning to the patio, Steve was offered his own plate of pie and ice cream in exchange for Robbie, who was about to get to know Sarah Rogers very well, thank you.

“Cute as a button,” mom told him, “That is exactly what you are.”

Steve smiled and chanced a glance over at Bucky.

It turned out, Bucky had already been looking at him.

“Uh, thanks for the pie,” Steve offered, already feeling like a miserable socially-challenged goon for saying so.

“No problem,” Bucky smiled back, so blissfully unaware of the marathon Steve’s brain had been running since this afternoon. “Thanks for getting my kid.”

Steve’s cheeks heated up again, the obvious solution for which was stuffing ice cream in his face.

The first pop of fireworks sounded not long after. While everyone came out from under the patio’s cover, Steve hung back with Bucky and helped him clear some plates.

“Dude, what are you doing?” Bucky asked. “Go watch the fireworks.”

“Not if you’re not gonna watch with me,” Steve tossed back, hoping it sounded more innocuous than it felt. Bucky quirked an eyebrow at him, but said nothing. He set down all the paper plates and plastic utensils in his hands and pulled Steve off of the patio and into the yard with everyone else.

They stopped right by Sarah, who looked from Robbie to them and back again, and chirped, “Look who joined us!”

“Aw, hey baby,” Bucky held out his arms, accepting the transfer of his son back to him. “You see the fireworks?”

On cue, a flash of light blasted right above the yard, followed quickly by a giant crack. Robbie visibly startled, but his big eyes sparkled with delight as lights rocketed this way and that.

“I think he's a fan,” Steve smiled and grabbed at one of Robbie’s chubby hands.

“Let's hope it doesn't morph into pyromania,” Bucky teased back.

As the show went on, people gradually gravitated toward one another. Mom and dad, George and Winnie, Clint and Nat, Riley and Sam--even Tony looped his arms around both husband and wife.

Maybe it was that small smile that crept up on Bruce’s face when Tony rested their heads together and Pepper tousled their hair… Maybe it was that which led Steve to sliding his arm around Bucky’s shoulders and resting their heads together.

“Thanks, Buck,” he said. “For everything.”

Bucky just smirked back.

“You're welcome, punk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday at California Adventure, I met Captain America. He had us pose like Rosie the Riveter and told us to have stern faces. Then he said something that made me laugh and I said, "Thanks a lot for making me laugh when I was supposed to be serious."
> 
> "Hey, you're at Disneyland, you can smile."
> 
> To which I replied, "Don't tell me what to do."
> 
> So yeah. That happened.


	7. Chapter 7

“Because no one needs to know I get baked with you and can’t keep my goddamn mouth shut!”

Bucky made a point to shut the door to the kitchen as firmly as possible, startling both Bruce and Clint to attention. 

“Heya, fellas,” Bucky folded his arms over his chest. “Any reason you’re canoodling in here and not doing your fucking jobs?” 

Bruce and Clint both spared a glance at one another before looking back to Bucky and admitting, “No.” 

Bucky let out a breath through his nose; he was too tired to pry into whatever the hell this was. Instead, he grabbed his mug out of the cabinet and filled it to the brim with lukewarm store brand coffee that Bucky kept telling Darcy not to get. Curiosity, however, was an unfortunate side effect of his personality, so he had to pry a little bit. 

“So, you two get baked together, huh?” Bucky asked as he took a sip of coffee. He pulled a face and popped his mug into the microwave. “Gotta say, Bruce, I expected more from you.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes. “This is the point where I remind you who I’m married to,” he said, “If I didn’t smoke weed, all of you would be dead and I’d be in prison and frankly I don’t have the energy to deal with that.”

Clint snorted just as the microwave let out its hallmark weakened chirp.

“Remind me we gotta get a new one of these,” Bucky told neither of them in particular, which was fine because reminding them would remind him to remind Darcy.

Truth be told, it felt kind of nice to deal with something that wasn’t shit-caked diapers and his son’s abject delight at pissing in his face. 

He looked back at Bruce and Clint. 

“So, THC gives you a case of loose lips?” he asked Bruce and Bruce rolled his eyes. 

“It’s kinda great,” Clint piped up, but where both Bucky and Bruce expected a follow up, there was none. An awkward moment passed between the three of them, with Bruce refusing to make eye contact and Clint scratching the back of his head all while Bucky stared. 

“So I guess I got no choice but to assume you were talking about what an asshole your boss is,” Bucky said and sipped at his coffee. 

“C’mon, we’d never shit talk Steve,” Clint replied lightly, earning him a whap on the shoulder. 

“Get back to work, you schmucks,” Bucky told them. 

“Yes sir, sergeant sir,” Bruce saluted and, with a final hard look at Clint, left the kitchen.  

Which left Bucky and Clint all alone. 

Bucky raised an eyebrow, “So, what were you fellas talking about?” 

“Aw, c’mon man, I can’t break stoner bro code,” Clint leaned against the counter. “Y’know, the whole ‘loose lips sink ships’ thing?” 

“Dude, you bring up shit I say when I’m high all the time,” Bucky scowled. “That’s why everyone knows I’d fuck Bill Nye, marry Neil deGrasse Tyson, and kill Richard Dawkins.” 

“Which, in retrospect, was not one of my more difficult fuck-marry-kill scenarios,” Clint added. 

Bucky set his coffee on the counter and took a step into Clint’s space. 

“So why’s Bruce get the cone of silence?” he asked. “What makes him worthy of stoner bro code?” 

Clint’s eyes flitted over Bucky, as though suddenly aware of how close they were. 

“He’s my bro,” Clint explained, not really explaining at all. “You’re my… fuckbuddy isn’t the right word, but. Bruce’s trust is sacred.”

Bucky cocked his head, leaning ever closer into Clint’s space. He could give a shit about whatever the hell they’d been talking about earlier; now Clint was getting all flustered and that phenomenon ran on about the same cycle as Haley’s Comet. He brought his fingers up to the flop of blond hair on Clint’s forehead and pushed it aside. 

“What’s my trust, huh?” Bucky asked, his voice soft and low, exactly in that register that made Clint’s breath just a little harder to catch. 

Clint licked his lips and caught Bucky’s eye, “I keep plenty of your secrets to myself.” 

Bucky’s heart picked up as Clint closed the distance between them. God, this was nice, sinking deep into the familiarity of playing with Clint. Things had been so hectic since the move. Even though they’d been in their house for about a month now, life was still a brand new balancing act between being Robbie’s dad, being Steve’s friend and roommate and business partner, and being the horny dumbass teenager that he’d never quite stopped being. 

“Whoa, workplace!”

Bucky sprung back from Clint like the guy had just caught fire. In the kitchen doorway stood Steve, the cordless work phone pressed to his ear and a look on his face that suggested he’d just seen a fucking ghost. 

Bucky rolled his eyes, “Never seen two guys make out before? Jesus.” 

“Still not okay to do at work,” Steve shot back and pushed his glasses back up his crooked nose, turning his attention back to the phone call, “Yeah, he’s here. What gave it away?” 

“Who is that?” Bucky asked. 

“Your mom,” Steve replied. “ Yeah, hang on Winnie,” he held out the phone for Bucky to take, “You weren’t answering your phone, so obviously you’re dead.” 

Bucky took the phone, answering, “Not dead, just preoccupied. Is everything okay? How’s Robbie?” 

“He’s fine,” was the only thing Bucky heard. Mom kept talking, but Bucky’s attention drifted back to Clint, who stared at Steve like the guy was a lioness poised to pounce. Steve, on the other hand, stood still with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Hang on, ma,” Bucky said and plucked his coffee off the counter once again. “Lemme move to a place where everyone’s not being a complete fuckin’ weirdo.” 

With a last look at Steve and Clint, Bucky huffed and shook his head. 

What exactly was his deal with idiot blonds anyway?

**oo**

July/August was a much slower time for the shop. Their building had air conditioning, they set up several fans, but there was something about the near triple-digit dog days of Southern California summer that drove people away from willingly sitting through hours under the tattoo machine. Not that Bucky could blame anybody--how people first populated this vicious, sun-drenched hellscape was a complete fucking mystery to him. Though the summers here lacked the textbook Brooklyn humidity, Bucky was likely never to be one hundred percent okay with the afternoon high reaching 104 degrees. 

So, when Steve was the only artist with a client in the chair, it was up to Bucky to take care of business things. 

Namely, it was Bucky’s turn to sign checks. Why he didn’t just make a signature stamp was beyond him; Bruce had one, but Bucky supposed that was because Bruce was technically their CFO and he had to sign everything. 

“Why,” Bucky whined when he first saw the stack of checks. “How come Steve only has to sign, like, ten and I have to sign over the entirety of our funds to eight hundred different people?” 

“Okay, well, your exaggeration aside, we had a lot of expenses,” Bruce said, mopping the sweat from his brow. “Broken AC, ordering new ink, ordering a new tattoo machine,” he finished loudly, so Thor would hear him from the light table.

“That was an accident,” Thor said back, pivoting in his chair. “I’ve already apologized and Steve and Bucky both have told me not to worry about it.”

“Yeah, it was an old machine, Bruce,” Steve piped up, eyes fixed on the touch-up job he currently had in the chair. 

“Whatever,” Bruce mumbled and placed each check Bucky signed into a corresponding folder. “I’ll mail these on my way home. I gotta get out of here.”

“Sure?” Bucky asked. Bruce wasn’t one to take time off, even when he wasn’t feeling right, no matter how many times Steve and Bucky insisted he do just that.

“Yeah, I’m really not into the whole ‘hot flashes during triple degree heat’ thing,” Bruce took his glasses off his face and wiped his whole face with the bottom of his shirt. 

“Everything okay?” Bucky asked. Occasionally, 

“No, but that’s never stopped me from ignoring it and proceeding like everything’s normal,” Bruce replied. “Skin just feels too tight. At least it’s not hellish at home.” 

“We get it,” Clint piped up, too busy sterilizing his station and tools to participate in the conversation fully, “You married a billionaire with a beach house.”

“I did,” Bruce gave a soft smile. “Turns out I didn’t need that dowry after all.”

Steve barked out a laugh.

“Good times at that beach house,” Clint continued, sounding almost wistful. “Hey Bucky, remember that threesome we had there?” 

Without looking up, Bucky replied, “You’re gonna have to be more specific, bud.”

Steve cleared his throat loudly; Bruce let out a sigh. 

“Tony’s birthday last year,” Clint clarified. “Everyone’s downstairs on the sand, you and I got our hands in each other’s trunks up in the master bath and Nat walks in--”

“Clint!” Steve snapped, his machine up and off the client’s skin. “For god’s sake,  _ workplace _ ! That better be the last fuckin’ time I say that today.”

When Bucky looked up, finally done with signing checks, he caught Bruce and Clint on the tail end of a silent conversation. Steve had already gone back in for final touch ups, in spite of the way Thor and the client (Angie, if Bucky remembered correctly) both stared at him. Bruce and Clint, as soon as they saw Bucky’s eyes on them, refused to look back at one another. 

What the fuck was going on here?

“Alright, Angie, you’re all done,” Steve announced, pretending the air wasn’t thick with tension. 

“Thanks, Steve,” Angie beamed right back, testing the mobility of her arm. She looked around the shop with a hint of disappointment on her face. “No Peggy today?” she asked. 

Steve, seeming to forget all at once the conversation prior, gave Angie a knowing grin. 

“Unfortunately, we lose Peggy for the entire month of August every year,” Steve said. “She goes back to London to see her family, escape the heat… really guess I shoulda told you that before you came in.” 

Angie, with a bashful look on her face, “Oh no, it’s fine. You did a beautiful job on her, Steve, thank you.” 

Indeed, the pinup girl on her arm did look rather nice, with her colors fully restored and her lines sharpened just a touch. Bucky sometimes wished he’d waited to get his pinup gal from Peggy, but how was he supposed to know the gal who deflowered Steve Rogers would turn out to be a pinup dynamo?

Bucky tugged up his right shirt sleeve, only to have a realization, outloud, while Steve was writing up Angie’s receipt behind the front counter. 

“I have a naked chick on my arm,” he said. 

“You noticed,” Steve returned. “Only took you eight years, but good for you.”

He ran Angie’s card through their machine and upon handing it back asked, “Wanna leave a little love note? I’ll make sure she gets it.”

As Angie accepted a pad of paper and a pen, Bucky nudged Steve, “I have a kid.” 

“And I’m finishing up with a client, Buck,” Steve shoved at him, though not very hard. 

Angie handed back the paper, folded over, and Steve made sure to stick it right in Peggy’s inbox behind Darcy’s desk. 

As soon as Angie was out of the shop, Bucky went right over to Steve’s station and sat down in the chair. 

“Why did I get a naked woman tattooed on my arm?” he asked as Steve cleaned up around him. 

“Because you were young and irresponsible,” Steve replied, looking at Bucky over the rims of his glasses. 

Fuck that stare and the unreasonably handsome face it rode in on.

“Now you’re slightly older and irresponsible,” Steve finished, a smirk on his lips. Bucky held up his middle finger in return.

“Can--would--” God, there was no easy way to ask this. “I can’t have a naked woman on my arm with a kid running around the house.”

“He sees you naked all the time,” Steve said. “And me, come to think of it. How the hell does he get around the house so quietly? He can’t even crawl.”

“Mostly I just set him down and forget where I put him,” Bucky admitted. “We gotta get a bell or something. I mean, I know he doesn’t move place to place on his own, but I don’t know, we’d be able to hear if he fell over or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” Steve smirked and straddled his rolling stool. He rolled up Bucky’s right sleeve all the way to his shoulder, then took Bucky’s arm in both his hands. He twisted Bucky’s skin this way and that, trying to make out the original lines that, oops, had never undergone a single touch up. 

“Yeah,” Steve concluded, “I can clean this up. Honestly, should’ve done it forever ago. Sit tight, I’ll get my colors all set up.”

While Steve went to the back room to find his special store of signature colors, Bucky found that he had drawn the attention of his coworkers. Bruce had long since packed up to leave, judging by how he’d been acting, which left Clint and Thor staring at Bucky like he had antlers growing out of his head. 

“What the fuck is everyone’s problem today?” Bucky asked. 

“Nothing,” Clint shook his head. Thor remained silent. 

“Bullshit,” Bucky scowled. “You’ve been acting weird all day, Barton.”

Then he trained his eyes on Thor. 

“You,” he pointed. “You’re notoriously shitty at lying. What’s going on?” 

Thor’s eyes went large, but all that meant nothing when he said, “I swear on my honor I don’t know anything.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. 

“Fine,” he said, “But I’m onto you.” 

Steve returned from the back room with colors in hand and a spring in his step. 

“Okay, how’s about we give his gal her clothes back,” he said and sat back down. He rolled over to his cabinet and collected a brand new disposable razor and a can of Barbasol. “You want me to shave your arm or do you wanna do it?” 

Clint coughed. 

“Get bent, ya putz,” Bucky snipped and held out his hand for the razor and shaving cream. While Bucky worked on hair removal, Steve set up his paints and made light chitchat with Thor about some sports nonsense that Bucky couldn’t follow. Clint took a walk-in, something about genital piercing that, honestly, Bucky was a little bummed to miss, but he couldn’t help it. He was so enraptured by Steve’s setup ritual, it was a wonder Bucky got his arm prepped at all. 

Just… the way Steve’s fingers handled inkwells, how his large-but-graceful hands slipped into his latex gloves, how his mind visibly focused the second his tattoo machine buzzed to life. He rolled the rest of the way back to Bucky, tray rolling right on behind him, and ran his gloved fingers over the freshly smooth skin. 

“Perfect,” he hummed and, holy fuck, why had Bucky thought this would be a good idea? He was basically locked in Steve’s personal space for who knew how long and who was to say that Bucky would be able to keep his cool?

He hissed a breath the second the machine made familiar contact with his skin. No matter what, there would always be a little anticipatory twitch that came with first contact. 

“What, um,” Bucky swallowed, “What’d you have in mind?” 

“Stars and stripes bikini,” Steve said, not looking away from where he now worked. Bucky could feel Steve’s breath on his skin, if only very barely. He asked, “That okay?” 

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, only too happy to fall quiet again and watch Steve work. 

Only, then Steve, still without looking up, asked, “You really have a threesome with Clint and Natasha in Tony’s master bathroom?”

Bucky’s stomach flipped. 

“Why… I mean, yeah,” Bucky said.

He swore Steve’s fingers dug deeper into his skin. 

“Anyone in this shop you haven’t slept with?” Steve asked. 

“Uh, you,” Bucky counted off on his left hand, now searching the middle distance for anyone else… “Yup, that’s it. You.”

Steve pulled back, swiping away the excess ink as he replied, “That’s bullshit, I cannot be the only person in the shop you haven’t slept with. Darcy, Nat, and Clint, sure. I know for a fact you haven’t slept with Bruce.” 

“Well, no not directly,” Bucky considered. “I guess. I mean, what is it when a husband and wife propose a threesome while their demisexual husband goes between watching them and reading a book in the armchair next to their bed? Which I think probably happens a lot.” 

“You had sex with Pepper and Tony?” Steve’s eyebrows flew up. “How do you even get Tony to shut up long enough to--y’know what? Never mind, I answered my own question.”

“Was the answer to your question ‘put a dick in his mouth’?” Bucky asked. “Because in that case you would be correct.” 

Steve pulled the machine from Bucky’s skin and hung his head. 

“That was what I was trying to avoid,” Steve sighed. 

“I’ll tell ya what, it’s not as horrifying an image as you’d think,” Bucky considered. “Those lips, and those eyelashes,  _ whoo _ , a mile long.” 

“Okay, we’re done talking about Tony and his… sexual appeal,” Steve stuck out his tongue, “God, that feels so wrong coming out of my mouth.”

“Whatever, Prudey Huxtable,” Bucky grinned and looked over to where Thor still sat at the light table, working meticulously on a design. “And that big bastard over there. Definitely hopped on his cock before.”

“Okay, now I know you’re lying,” Steve said and perked up to look at Thor. “Hey Thor. Did you ever sleep with Bucky?” 

“I have,” Thor chirped back merrily. 

Bucky gave Steve the,  _ ‘see?’  _ look, and Steve narrowed his eyes. 

“Why have I thought you were straight this whole time?” Steve asked. 

“My sexuality is more or less fluid,” Thor clarified. 

“More fluid than less, from what I remember,” Bucky grinned back and tossed Thor a wink. 

“All joking aside, the sex was formidable, as were the sounds that he made,” Thor continued. “I’m surprised nobody called the police.”

“Okay, well Thor has the biggest dick I have ever seen and sitting on that thing was like sitting on a fucking obelisk. I thought I was gonna split in half,” Bucky defended himself. “You’d scream bloody murder too if you thought you were gonna split in half.”

“Why wouldn’t you just not try to sit on his dick?” Steve asked, and conversational though the words were, getting Steve to talk about sex in any capacity was a chore. Stammering, stumbling, blushing Steve now talking about sitting on Thor’s dick was… god, it was majestic. 

“Uh, yeah,” Bucky laughed. “Like I’m gonna see the leviathan of dicks and not try to sit on it.”

Thor’s trademark delighted, triumphant laugh filled the room. 

“You did very well, I’ll say that,” Thor said. 

“Thanks, big guy,” Bucky grinned. He was well aware that Steve had long since put down his machine, despite the fact that he couldn’t possibly be done yet, but when Bucky moved to ask him what the holdup was, Steve asked,

“Peggy?” 

Bucky blinked. 

Shit.

“Way, way after you guys broke up, Steve,” Bucky said. “I didn’t even think about it when you two were together.”

Not sleeping with just her, anyway.

Steve just nodded, though, oddly calm before he picked up the machine and began tattooing again. 

“Steve, you’re not reacting and it’s kinda giving me the cree--”

“Never tried to sleep with me, though,” Steve interjected. 

Bucky narrowed his eyes, “Did… you want me to?” 

Steve pulled a face and shook his head, completely engrossed in fixing up the work on Bucky’s arm. Bucky’s phone vibrated where it sat on his lap. He picked it up to see a message from Thor.

_ ‘I think he may have wanted you to.’ _

“Well,” Thor cleared his throat and stood. “Jane and Darcy insisted upon a trip to the Hollywood Bowl, so it’s probably best I go and get ready for that. Steve, Bucky, Clint… wherever it is that he may be. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

Nothing but the buzz of the tattoo machine broke the following silence. Bucky knew when Steve needed to be left alone. Unfortunately, he was in the middle of inking Bucky’s skin and therefore could not be left alone, so Bucky was forced to enter into a period of careful silence. At least by now Bucky found the process of getting tattooed to be somewhat meditative. With nothing but the machine going, it was easy to focus on that and only that and allow the rest of the world to fade around the edges. 

_ Had  _ Steve wanted Bucky to sleep with him? Or was it one of those ‘don’t want to go to the party but an invitation would have been nice’ kind of scenarios? 

What if Steve had wanted to sleep with Bucky? What if they could’ve been doing this since they were wet behind the ears teenagers, instead of doing whatever the fuck it was that they were doing now? 

What if Steve hadn’t wanted that with Bucky? No, that made no sense, because  if he didn’t care he would’ve just chucked that little Steve chuckle and looked at him over the tops of his glasses and called him a hopeless tramp or some shit. 

Bucky’s phone vibrated again, this time with a message from Clint:

_ ‘Went home. Looked tense in there didn’t want to disturb. Here if you need.’ _

Bucky’s heart started pounding faster than he could measure. 

This… this was going to happen. The one thing he told himself Steve would never know.

“Okay,” Steve pulled back one last time and gave Bucky’s arm a final wipe down. “Got ya covered there, ma’am.”

He handed Bucky the mirror on his tool table and Bucky had to catch his mouth from falling open. The more or less featureless woman on his arm had transformed into a buxom brunette, all curves, filling the hell out of her spangled bikini top and her striped, high waisted bottoms. 

“Gave me a USO girlie almost,” Bucky grinned as Steve disinfected the irritated skin. “I love her.” 

“Good,” Steve nodded as he pulled off his gloves, seeming pleased with himself. 

“May even commission a pinup guy from you,” Bucky marveled, then backed up, because sincerity was difficult right now, “Honestly Steve, you could make a career outta this tattoo thing.”

Steve snorted and rolled his eyes. 

“C’mon, I gotta wrap you up,” he said. 

“Meet me in the kitchen,” Bucky yawned as he pushed himself up and out of the chair, “Need water.” 

Jesus, he could’ve fallen asleep there. 

Bucky had only enough time to finish his glass of water before Steve entered the kitchen with a jar of salve, some saran wrap and medical tape. The heat had wilted Steve’s hair considerably, leaving it to hang down on his forehead. Sweat glistened over his arms and his face, made his glasses slide down his nose even easier. 

“Arm,” Steve said. 

Bucky stuck out his right arm and refilled his water glass with his left. If he thought Steve’s hands were hot on him before, it was nothing compared to now. Fingers coated in salve massaged into Bucky’s skin, sliding with such sweet friction that Bucky could’ve lost himself in it. Or, he could have lost himself in it if every other one of his senses wasn’t already so acutely aware of Steve’s proximity, of the tenseness in Steve’s jaw and the unfamiliar grip of his fingers on his arm. 

“What’s going on with you?” Bucky asked. 

Well, that was one way to start this conversation. 

Steve didn’t look up, didn’t even bother responding until he’d laid the plastic wrap over Bucky’s arm. 

“Too hot to be alive,” was the only response Steve was apparently willing to give. 

“Bullshit,” Bucky said, accepting the roll of medical tape in hand after Steve had torn off his first piece. “I complain about the heat. You sit and suffer in silence. That’s how it works.”

Steve made a noise in his throat that wasn’t quite a grunt, but it conveyed more or less the same thing. 

Another strip of tape, then another and another. 

“This stays on for the rest of the day,” Steve warned, like he was talking to a first time client and not the guy who’d spent literal hours under his tattoo machine. 

“What the fuck is your problem?” Bucky posed then. “You’ve been acting like a weirdo for weeks now.”

Steve said nothing. 

“And then earlier,” Bucky continued, but the thought drifted. He wanted to keep accusing Steve, wanted to go until Steve finally copped to what was wrong. 

“When I found out you slept with Peggy?” Steve supplied. 

Bucky’s eyes narrowed. 

“That happened way after you guys, I already told you,” he said, his voice remarkably even. “Christ, Steve, it’s not like I had it in my head the entire time that I was sleeping with your ex. I was sleeping with Peggy Carter, and it’s not like I ever intended it to happen.”

“Nah, you never intend for it to happen,” Steve shook his head, his words correct but his tone condescending. “You just wake up from a trance and realize you’ve slept with someone, probably. Right?” 

“What the fuck!” Bucky snatched his arm back. “Since when the shit is it any of your business who I sleep with?” 

“It’s not!” Steve shot back. “I just didn’t know you’d slept with Peggy.”

Bucky sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face. Shit… 

“Steve, if I’d known you still had the hots for her--”

“I don’t!” Steve snapped. 

“Then why do you care!?” Bucky’s eyes widened through his incredulity. “Unless you’re pissed off that  _ Peggy _ has slept with  _ me _ .”

Steve’s face went crimson. 

Bucky couldn’t even delight in the revelation. He was too far gone, they both were. 

“You’re mad that I’ve never slept with  _ you _ ,” Bucky spat, white hot anger hitting him like a freight train. “Christ, Steve, that is so  _ like _ you. The only fucking reason you’re not a wet behind the ears twenty-seven year old virgin is because Peggy had the wherewithal to know you wouldn’t make the first move!” 

Steve remained silent.  _ Good _ , because if Steve opened his mouth and said one more stupid fucking thing, Bucky would deck him. Now it was his turn. Steve got to be righteously angry all the time, all while Bucky told him to calm down and stay out of trouble he couldn’t get out of on his own. 

“If you wanted me to fuck you,” Bucky laughed, close to hysterical. “Of course you wouldn’t fucking say anything, because you’re a fucking coward.”

Steve’s eyes went dark as he finally jumped back in, “Now hang on--”

“No,” Bucky cut him off. “You’re too chicken to ask for anything you want. You asked Peggy out for fondue, you asshole! Who eats fondue after 1974?!”

“I’m not a chicken!” Steve shot back. 

“No, of course not,” Bucky crossed his arms over his chest. “A chicken wouldn’t be so afraid of a little cock.” 

While maintaining incredibly heated eye contact, Bucky flew all the way back to the fourth grade and tucked his hands under his armpits. While flapping makeshift wings, he clucked out, “ _ bawk-bawk-BAWK _ ”. 

Like a flash of lightning, Bucky found himself with his back slammed into the refrigerator and a very angry, very determined Steve Rogers pinning him there. There was very little distance between them, and for a hot second Bucky was pretty sure he was gonna get clocked right in the jaw. 

But then Steve’s hands twisted in the front of his shirt and forced Bucky back against the fridge and-- _ fuck. _

Steve crushed their lips together so hard that Bucky thought for a split second that one of his teeth cracked. Anger aside, Bucky’s brain let out a soft little,  _ finally _ before it registered the molten heat behind it. One of his hands came up to tangle in Steve’s sweat-damp hair, but Steve caught him at the wrist and pinned it back against the fridge. 

_ Holy shit.  _

Steve pulled back just enough for Bucky to see his face. Color still rode high on his cheeks, his glasses had knocked askew, spit glistened on his lips… but behind that feral look in his eye there lurked an unspoken question. 

Bucky’s lips twitched up into part of a grin, which disappeared the second Steve’s mouth made contact with his once again. He let Steve take the lead; Bucky thought he’d more than earned the privilege of being manhandled. 

And Steve had absolutely no problem manhandling Bucky, a revelation that sent a shot of arousal right to Bucky’s groin. As quickly as he’d been slammed into the fridge, Bucky found himself flat on the (thankfully) sturdy kitchen table. Steve wasn’t dumb enough to climb on top of him, as their combined weight would absolutely result in a broken table, but he did brace both hands on either side of Bucky’s head and lower himself into another kiss. 

Every single dirty thought Bucky had ever had regarding Steve, from the first pang of longing that came with puberty to the deep dark fantasies that put a cramp in Bucky’s hand late at night, came to the forefront of his mind and sunk down to his nethers. It was just as well he rescinded control to Steve. Bucky’s mind was such a mess, he wouldn’t even know where to begin. 

Steve finally broke their kiss, but if Bucky thought he was done, he was sorely mistaken apparently. He appeared to be stunned by the now very obvious lump in Bucky’s jeans. 

“You wanna touch it, don’t you?” Bucky panted through a grin. 

Steve, transfixed, complied. A searing hot hand cupped around Bucky’s erection and Bucky’s head fell back against the tabletop. 

“Fuck,” Steve said softly. Then his hand was gone and instead joined the other in pulling Bucky to the very edge of the table. Deft fingers that spent hours curled around a tattoo machine now worked almost effortlessly to pop the button and drag down the zipper on Bucky’s jeans. Bucky even lifted his hips so Steve could shimmy his pants and boxer-briefs down in one go. 

They didn’t make it all the way down Bucky’s thighs. The moment Steve’s eyes settled on Bucky’s cock… God, Bucky wished he had his phone at the ready, because he wanted to remember that look on Steve’s face for years to come. 

“Hey,” Bucky jostled his thigh against Steve’s hip. “I show you mine, you show me yours.”

It didn’t come out as quite the demand that Bucky meant, more like a question, an offer, a last chance for Steve to tap out before they went past the point of no return. 

Because apparently they hadn’t hit that point yet. 

Only, then Steve undid his pants with all the same gusto as he’d undone Bucky’s and there was his dick, all swollen and getting red, like he’d been all riled up and getting hard since long before this encounter. 

Maybe he had been. 

Bucky wrapped his legs around Steve as best he could with his jeans restricting his movements. Heat rolled off of Steve just as it rolled off of Bucky, mingling between them and  _ god _ , Bucky was going to go insane if Steve’s entire plan was just to stare at him like that.

Steve made eye contact, and Bucky did his best to plead without saying a goddamn word. If he said the wrong thing, it was over, and Bucky would be damned if he fucked this up. 

So, Bucky compromised and rolled his hips just a little, meant to encourage but instead their cocks brushed together and Bucky really couldn’t help it this time: he whimpered. 

“Fuck,” Steve repeated and reached down to take not only himself in hand, but Bucky too. 

“Shit, hang on,” Bucky huffed and sat up, legs still hooked around Steve’s torso as he wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck. The angle aligned them better, allowing Bucky to really feel the whole of Steve against him. He dropped his forehead against the meat of Steve’s shoulder and sighed. “Fuck, I forgot how big you are.”

Steve let out a desperate little laugh, “How would you know?”

“We’ve been friends for years, Steve,” Bucky swallowed, surprised he could think this clearly still. “We’ve seen each other’s dicks, just not like this.” 

Steve gave the two of them a squeeze at that and Bucky let out a shaky breath. Steve took it as the cue that was intended and began to move his hand. Bucky’s brain shorted out not two strokes in; to keep from saying anything too incriminating, Bucky sealed his lips to Steve’s neck and muffled his noises by sucking bruises into Steve’s skin. 

Sensory overload was an understatement. Steve’s hand and cock burned into him, branded him in exactly the way he’d wanted for all too long. He could feel himself getting close so embarrassingly quickly, but judging by the soft sounds coming from Steve, he wasn’t alone. 

“Close?” Bucky asked, just to be sure. It was Steve’s turn to hide his face in Bucky’s shoulder, so Bucky smiled and pet a hand over Steve’s hair. He reassured, “Me too. Here…”

He nudged Steve’s hand out of the way and replaced it with his own. Steve’s girth was so much more apparent like this, as was the amount of precome they’d made between the two of them. Slick heat, just the right amount of friction between Bucky’s hand and their erections rubbing and sliding and--

Steve’s fingers tangled tight in Bucky’s t-shirt about half a second before he stilled and whimpered and came in quick shots all over them. Bucky tried to let go and finish himself off (with Steve’s come sliding over him, he tried not to remind himself) but Steve took over again. He was still hard, sensitive if the little twitches in his muscles were anything to go by, but he jerked himself in tandem with Bucky and that alone was enough to send Bucky rocketing off the edge. Soft slick, the firm pull of Steve’s unrelenting hand had him unable to control himself. He knew for a fact that he groaned through his orgasm, maybe even whimpered a little when Steve’s grip wouldn’t let up and the slide was too much to bear. 

And then his hand was gone and Bucky felt Steve slump against him just as he slumped against Steve, each propping up the other as they caught their breath. 

He’d process this later, worry about what it all meant when he wasn’t nose-deep in the glorious sex musk of Steve Rogers. 

When he realized he was chuckling, Steve asked, “What?” 

Bucky let out a full-chested, hysterical giggle and simply said, “Workplace.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when ur beta is asleep but u finish a chapter and ur too impatient to wait for her to wake up...

“Chicken noises,” Sam said. “He made chicken noises, and you say, ‘now I’m gonna touch his dick.’”

Steve sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“Man, you know I love you, but I swear to god, you are  _ dumb _ ,” Sam shook his head. 

“I know I'm dumb sometimes, all right?” Steve began, but Sam cut him off. 

“Did you hear me say sometimes?” he asked. “All the time, Steve. You are dumb one hundred percent of the time. That is a statement of fact.”

“Well, that does explain how I became friends with you,” Steve replied dryly, not looking any one place in particular as he sipped his coffee out of one of Sam’s well-loved, worn-in mugs. 

After a night of staring directly at the ceiling, begging for sleep (or immediate death), Steve rolled out of bed at six o’clock, got Robbie ready for the day, and made a break for the only sanctuary he truly had.

Sam and Riley lived only five minutes away from the new house. Theirs was a worn-in, homey place. Sam and Riley weren’t ostentatious people when it came to interior decorating, preferring function over form on every count. Where Sam sat sinking into one of their overstuffed armchairs, Steve sat on the edge of their abnormally cozy second-hand couch. Riley, meanwhile, hadn’t moved from where Steve parked Robbie’s car seat, seeming content to make faces and babble while he waited for his coffee to kick in. 

While Bucky had been to the apartment before, Sam and Bucky had a contentious friendship and so tended to avoid one another at every turn; Bucky would look everywhere else before he looked for Steve here. 

Bucky Barnes was many things, but a strategist he was not. 

“I don’t know what happened,” Steve said then, vying to fill the silence with anything. 

Sam narrowed his eyes, “Don’t lie, man. You know what happened, you just don’t like it.”

“Steven,” Riley finally turned to them, holding Robbie close to his chest. “I’m gonna tell you something: I grew up Methodist, with three older brothers and one younger. I didn’t like girls, but that didn’t bother me too bad because I liked playing football.”

“Who needs girls when you can tackle great big guys in tight pants?” Sam grinned. 

“My point,” Riley glared momentarily at Sam before turning back to Steve. “Sometimes it takes some of us a little while longer to realize something that by all accounts shoulda been obvious.You really may not know; I'm willing to acknowledge that possibility. But there’s knowing and there’s  _ knowing _ , and even if you didn’t know, I think you  _ knew _ .”

“I-I never liked anyone like that, really,” Steve shrugged. “Not ‘til Peggy. Then again, I only ever really talked to Bucky ‘til we got here.”

“You didn’t have any other friends?” Sam asked. “I mean, you’re a dork, but damn.” 

The thing was, Steve hadn’t thought it strange that Bucky was more or less his only friend. Steve spent so much of his childhood in and out of school, too sick to socialize, much less do it well. Bucky, somehow, hadn't cared, and Steve had just been so happy to have a friend that he didn't dare wish for another. 

The timer in the kitchen went off. Riley handed Robbie off to Steve and disappeared to deal with the food on the stove. Robbie was sleepy still, the poor thing. It wasn’t his fault that Steve was a total dink and ruined what was quite possibly the most important relationship he’d ever had. 

Robbie yawned, and in that moment he saw Bucky’s face scrunch and stretch with the involuntary plea for more sleep. When those little eyes opened again and their gazes met, Steve’s heart squeezed in his chest. 

“What do I even say?” he asked, like Robbie had any answer to give. 

Luckily, Sam substituted in, “You tell him exactly what you want. You say what you mean and you mean what you say. You tell him the truth, and if that means telling him you don’t want your relationship to be something else, that’s what you say. And if it means that you want your relationship to change, you tell him that. That way you know you’ve said and done all you can, and however he reacts…” 

Sam shrugged. 

“Then that’s how he reacts,” he concluded. “Can’t do a thing about him, only you.”

Steve didn’t realize his eyes had welled with tears until he blinked. Hastily, he reached up to dab his eyes with his shirt sleeve, praying Sam wouldn’t call any attention to it. 

He didn’t.

“I can’t lose him, Sam,” Steve told him and held onto Robbie tighter. 

“I know,” Sam nodded. “But we don’t know that’ll happen. Don’t get caught up in the ‘what-ifs’, man. It’s a battle you’ll lose every time, same thing with ‘coulda-shoulda-woulda’. You can’t change what happened, but it’s up to you whether you wanna take control of what you do next.”

Robbie, as though he knew exactly what Sam was talking about, began to spit bubbles out between his lips. 

“Okay, breakfast time, you heathens,” Riley announced, carrying three plates full of down home goodness to the dining table. Steve followed Sam over and took a seat with Robbie on his lap. Riley then brought from the kitchen a small bowl of grits and set them down beside Steve’s plate. 

“You gave me grits already,” Steve pointed to his plate. 

“Yeah, those are for that li’l sweet potato,” Riley reached over and booped Robbie’s nose. 

Steve held onto Robbie tighter. 

“He can’t have solids yet, are you crazy?” Steve told them. Riley raised an eyebrow. 

“These look solid to you?” he asked Steve. 

“Now, now, to be fair,” Sam interjected, “Last thing he thought was solid was his heterosexuality.”

“Ooohhhh shit!” Riley let out a boisterous laugh. “Burn!”

Robbie let out what could only be described as the cry of a newborn pterodactyl, and giggled when Riley and Sam both busted up. 

Steve sighed and looked down, “Et tu, Robert?” 

He turned Robbie so they could meet eyes again.

Robbie blew a raspberry. 

**oo**

The thing was, Steve had never seen Bucky quite like he’d seen him the night before. He’d seen Bucky before sex and after sex, but during was a whole different experience. Bucky was reactive, uninhibited, arched into Steve’s hand like he’d been there a thousand times before. He’d kissed Steve like they were the only two people on the planet, like every single fiber of his being was made for those awkwardly perfect mashing of mouths and clacking of teeth. 

And god, when he came… Steve liked that. He liked when he made anyone come, but doing it for Bucky was something else.

Steve would like to keep doing that, please. 

Truth be told, Steve totally jerked off to the memory in the shower this morning and he didn’t feel even a little bad about it, because it had felt amazing. 

When he’d gotten to the shop, Steve had pulled out their Costco-sized container of sanitizing wipes and spent the entirety of the morning wiping down everything in the break room (the table especially).

He knew Bruce knew something was up; after that talk on his birthday last month, Steve had come to terms with the fact that someone knew something about him that virtually no one else did, and the guy wasn’t stupid, for god’s sake. Thor wasn’t stupid either, and in fact was very perceptive. He caught on to social disturbances more readily than anyone Steve knew, almost like some weird sort of Emotion Jedi. Then there was Clint. 

If Clint and Bucky were… whatever it was that they were, would Bucky have said anything to him? Oh god, were they still going to sleep together? Were they still going to pal around and hip check and occasionally get caught making out in parts of the shop with the least foot traffic? What if Bucky didn’t want Steve the way that Steve wanted him? Could Steve handle him dating and sleeping with other people now? 

Suddenly, Steve felt very sick. 

“Hey.”

Steve leapt almost a foot in the air when Bucky appeared beside him. They hadn’t seen one another since last night when they’d gotten home. They’d made light chit-chat when they were in the car, before and after getting Robbie from Winnie and George. 

“Jesus, Steve, chill,” Bucky told him. “You weren’t home this morning. Early client?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Steve nodded. Let’s go with that. 

“Anyone on the docket for me?” Bucky asked. 

“I don’t think so,” Steve shook his head. He felt all the blood rapidly rushing from his appendages into his head. Was it possible for a person’s head to explode? No, right?

Steve must’ve looked distant, because Bucky patted his shoulder and asked, “Wanna take a walk?” 

Taking a walk meant walking back to the storage room and shutting themselves inside. Steve’s entire body thrummed with nervous energy. There wasn’t anywhere to run now.

“So, I guess we gotta talk,” Bucky folded his arms and leaned back against the door. 

Heavy and resigned, Steve nodded, “Yeah.”

And so the standoff began.  _ Shocking _ though it was that neither of them was keen to talk about the issue at hand, they couldn’t just not discuss it, and they both knew it. 

In the harsh light of the storage room, Steve could see the dark bruises of exhaustion under Bucky’s eyes. Age lines creased his skin, regardless of how well he moisturized (not that Steve would ever tell him as much), and god, he just looked so worn out. 

“Buck,” Steve heard himself say, but Bucky held up a hand. 

“Just--let me get this out,” Bucky told him. Steve nodded, and watched Bucky take a deep breath and stare up at the ceiling. His jaw started to tremble in a nervous tic Steve hadn’t seen since they were kids. Bucky went through a couple more breathing cycles before he steeled himself and said, “I’ve been attracted to you since we were in middle school. You were the first crush I ever got on a boy. I know I told you it was that guy Gabe Jones, but it was you. And I’ve known for that long that I couldn’t have you because you’re straight.” 

“I’m not,” Steve spoke softly.

Bucky raised  an eyebrow. 

“I know media portrayal’s all about, ‘I touched a dick, now I like dudes’,” Bucky said, “But you can be straight and get caught up in something.” 

“No, stop,” Steve shook his head. “Now you get to listen to me. I’m not straight. I think I’m actually on the asexuality spectrum. Is that what it’s called? That’s what Bruce and the internet called it, but I don’t know. You can only cross-reference so many things on the internet before you just keep falling on the same Tumblr post.” 

Bucky blinked, so Steve kept talking. 

“You know Peggy’s the only person I ever really felt attracted to,” he said. “And it wasn’t ‘til I got to know her that I even wanted to go out with her and, y’know…”

“Christ, Steve,” Bucky rolled his eyes, “You’ve touched my dick now. You can say you wanted to fuck her.”

The words felt harsh, but Steve acquiesced. 

“Yes,” he sighed, “It wasn’t ‘til I got to know her that I wanted to fuck her. I don’t feel that pull toward a lot of people, Buck. I’m not like you where I can drop my pants and climb into bed with the nearest human being. I want more outta things than that, okay? I could give a shit about sex--I like it with the right person, but it’s not something I’m hinging all hopes on. I liked sex with Peggy, and… and from what I can tell, I like sex with you too. But if that’s all you want out of it, then I can’t. I can’t do that.” 

Bucky just stood there, absorbing all this information like a sponge. 

And then he snapped out of it and made a grab for the doorknob. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just. I gotta--this is way too small in here, I gotta go. I’m gonna go. I’ll see you at home. Or back here, just--I gotta go.” 

Before Steve could even formulate a plea for him to stay, the door slammed shut and everything went numb.

 

* * *

 

Bucky didn’t know he’d ever driven so irresponsibly in his life. He couldn’t help it; he was in panic mode. There was no way that just happened. Honestly, there was no way the last fourteen hours even happened. Steve Rogers, self-proclaimed heterosexual a thousand times over, did not tell Bucky that he wanted something more than sex from him. 

That didn’t happen. 

Bucky pulled into his parents’ driveway and let himself in through the garage. Hellish summer heat outside didn’t exist in this insulated, air-conditioned oasis. The aroma of mom’s home-grown tomatoes cooking down on the stove hung heavy and tangy in the air. She may not have been Italian, but the woman knew her way around a tomato sauce. 

Beyond the kitchen sat the dining area, and adjoined to that was the living room, where mom and Robbie sat reading a book. 

“Hey, ma,” Bucky said. Mom turned around, genuine and genial surprise coloring her features. She parked her reading glasses atop her head and hauled Robbie up so he could see too. 

“It’s daddy!” she told him. “He came to see you.”

Robbie’s face lit up. He still wasn’t much of a mover, but damn if he didn’t try his hardest. 

“Hey, baby,” Bucky came around the couch and sat beside mom, accepting all too readily the weight of his son in his arms. Before he could think better, he said, “Some days I think you’re the only person who makes sense, bud.”

“Oh?” mom asked. 

Damn. 

“Honey,” mom said, “is something wrong?” 

Bucky heaved a sigh. It was now or never, he supposed. 

“I had sex with Steve last night.”

“What!?” mom yelped, startling both Robbie and Bucky. 

“Sh, it’s okay,” Bucky soothed, more for himself than Robbie. 

“James Buchanan--”

“Hey!” Bucky exclaimed. “Cool your jets with the middle name dropping, jesus. We fooled around in the breakroom. He didn’t… impregnate me with your second grandchild or anything.”

Mom’s face remained stoic for a few moments before she let out a breath and sat back against the couch cushions. 

“I can’t fucking believe it happened,” she said. “Well, I owe your dad twenty bucks, so thanks for that.” 

“Ma,” Bucky shifted, his face getting warmer.

“Oh please, you two are Olympic level torch-carriers,” mom rolled her eyes, then paused. Realization dawned on her face. “You were here last night. I  _ knew _ you were acting weird. That’s twenty bucks your dad owes me now. Thanks for helping mama break even, sweetie. And I saw him this morning, oh god. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all last night.”

“Look, nothing happened after,” Bucky told her. “We came here, got the kid, went home and went to sleep in our respective bedrooms. And then when I tried to talk to him about it today when I got to work, he… as soon as I tell him I’ve had a middle schooler crush on him for the last fourteen years, he tells me that he wants more than just sex from me.” 

“And what did you say?” mom asked.

“I,” Bucky let out all his breath and looked up at the ceiling. “I bailed and came here.” 

Silence followed. Mom stood up and took Robbie from him, setting him down on his blanket with a crinkly giraffe before she came back to Bucky and--

“Ow!” Bucky grabbed the side of his head. 

“You just left him after he poured his heart out to you!?” she yelled and hit him again. “You asshole! I can’t believe I raised such an unbelievable asshole!” 

“I panicked!” Bucky yelped back. 

“He all but tells you he wants to have a romantic and sexual relationship with you and you suddenly decide that’s not what you’ve ever wanted?” 

“Not--” Bucky cut himself off. Why  _ did _ he run? 

He’d been waiting for years to hear something close to those words come out of Steve’s mouth. Now that it was a possibility, what the fuck was holding him back? What the hell had the Bucky of half an hour ago sought to gain by running for his son and his mom? How had he not just broken down and collapsed into Steve’s arms and declared his undying love in return? 

… right. Because this wasn’t a soap opera. 

“He’s so fucking sincere,” Bucky concluded. “Like. You know he woulda married Peggy if Peggy’d had any interest in getting married at all. What if he wants to marry me?” 

“I have a box full of old notebooks in the garage,” mom pointed in the general direction of said garage, “anecdotal evidence that your high school self would come and roundhouse you in the face for saying that.”

“Yeah, and you know what high schoolers are?” Bucky asked. “They’re fucking morons! Just because I had some puppy love thing going on doesn’t mean we’d actually be great at being married.”

“You live together, you raise a child together--do not look at me like that, James, because that is  _ exactly _ what’s happening,” she warned. “You’re not thinking clearly. That’s not a judgment, but a statement of fact. You think I was thinking clearly when your dad asked me to be his girlfriend? I lied about leaving my stove on and didn’t talk to him until the next day. My side of the family has a severe ‘fight or flight’ problem, so… sorry.” 

Bucky frowned.

“You really did that to dad?” he asked. 

“Yes, and speaking honestly, I still feel horrible when I think about it too hard,” mom said and finally sat back down. “We’re lucky that your father is a very understanding, patient, and loving man. The most sound advice I can give you is this: don’t wait until tomorrow to tell him how you feel.” 

Bucky’s stomach twisted. Steve must've been losing his mind right now and it was entirely Bucky’s fault. Steve wasn't a big sharer when it came to feelings and Bucky had just lanced him the second he bared his vulnerable emotional underbelly. 

“God, I'm a dick,” Bucky sighed. 

“Honey, who isn't from time to time?” Mom asked. “You're a human being. If there's one thing I like to  _ think  _ we instilled in you kids, it's that when you fuck up, you fix it to the best of your ability. You play the hand you have and hope for the best.” 

Bucky slid down onto the floor and stretched out beside Robbie. He nudged Becca’s old bear toward the blanket and rested his chin in his hands. 

That was the other thing: he didn't have just himself to think about anymore. 

“What if it doesn't work?” Bucky wondered aloud. “I can't do that to Robbie.”

Mom took a moment. 

“I appreciate your dedication to and support of your child,” she said. “You matter too, though, and if you’re unhappy, Robbie will know, and it’ll have more of an impact on him than you could ever imagine. If you think there’s a possibility that being with Steve could make you happy, it’s worth it to try. He’s already an important person in Robbie’s life; you two are practically raising him together anyway.”

Bucky rested a hand on Robbie’s back. Robbie looked over to him and let out a noise that, honestly, made him sound like a dog’s squeaky toy. Steve was so good with Robbie, too. Bucky knew they loved one another, that they had bonded separate of him and to take that from either of them would be so  _ selfish _ …

Then again, he couldn’t really speak on selfishness, could he? Not when he’d left an obviously emotional Steve behind for the sake of preserving his own feelings. 

Bucky hung his head. 

“I have to go back, don’t I?” he asked. 

“You’re damn skippy,” mom affirmed, victorious. 

**oo**

When Steve wasn’t at the shop, Bucky was grateful to hear from Bruce that they’d sent him home for the day. He’d sped back to the house, resolving to pick Robbie up for the day after he and Steve sorted all of this out. 

But when Bucky got home, Steve was nowhere to be found.  His bike was parked in the garage next to his car, and the man gave up on his stubborn New York instinct to walk everywhere he went. 

Bucky tried to check Steve’s bedroom, but when he got there the door was locked. 

“Steve?” Bucky jiggled the handle. “Steve, c’mon. I need to talk to you.”

There was a long pause before a reply came through the door. 

“I kinda don’t wanna talk right now, Buck.”

Fuck.  _ Fuck _ , he’d been crying. 

“Steve, please,” Bucky rested his forehead on the door. “Please, I’m sorry.”

“That’s fine,” Steve said. “I’m not ready to talk right now.”

Bucky’s throat muscles seized in his attempts to keep it together.  _ Right now _ , Bucky reminded himself. Steve had said ‘right now’ twice in a row, which meant Bucky could stop panicking about Steve never wanting to speak to him again. What Steve would say was unclear, but Bucky could worry about that later. 

“Okay,” Bucky managed to get out. “Um, I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

God, he sounded like such a fucking idiot. He was, though, wasn’t he? He’d taken a perfect opportunity, all but handed to him on a silver platter, and he’d thrown it against the wall, kicked over the table, and trashed the whole banquet hall. 

… that metaphor got away from him, but whatever. 

Rather than ruminate, Bucky resolved to make himself useful. He traded his jeans for sweats and his clean shirt for the one he’d worn to bed the night before, then tied his hair up on top of his head. 

Bucky took out the garbage. He finished washing the pile of dishes that had accumulated in their sink over the last week (how hard was it for Steve to rinse a dish and put it in the fucking dishwasher?), and when that was done he wiped down the counters. With a thoroughly cleaned workspace, Bucky then felt comfortable opening the refrigerator and pantry to see what he had on hand for dinner. 

In his time living alone, Bucky had forgotten just how satisfying it was to cook. Steve cooked because it was the healthiest option, because he needed to keep tabs on what he ate and when he ate it in order to keep his body functional. Bucky, on the other hand, cooked like his mom cooked, i.e., to feed people. That was a satisfaction that rivaled sex, at least for him. Yeah, Bucky liked to take care of his partners in bed, and prided himself on a (blow/hand/rim)job well-done, but there was something special about the way people melted into good food. 

Plus, cooking tended to be meditative. Bucky could  _ chop-chop _ or  _ mincemincemince _ and lose himself without much effort. The aromas and steam were renewing, seeping into the cracks of Bucky’s resolve and patching them over, if only for a short amount of time. 

Somewhere in his deepest thoughts, Bucky knew: if Steve took it all back, if he didn’t want anything to do with Bucky or Robbie after this, he would… god, he’d just have to be okay with it. His parents had a couple extra rooms; it wasn’t like Bucky and Robbie hadn’t stayed there before, and maybe it would be good to have his parents helping him instead of Steve. This wasn’t Steve’s life, after all, it was Bucky’s. 

“What’re you making?” 

Bucky startled at the intrusion. Steve stood in the doorway to the kitchen, his arms folded and his eyes still pink and a little puffy. Bucky’s chest ached at the sight, every instinct telling him to fly forward and hold Steve until he stopped being so sad. Instead, he stayed still and tucked a tendril of hair behind his ear. 

“Uh, ziti,” Bucky supplied. 

Steve nodded, “Smells really good.”

With a look at his phone, Bucky could see now: “Holy shit, it’s six o’clock?” 

Steve’s lips quirked in a tentative, fragile smile. Well, if Bucky’d thought his heart couldn’t have shattered into anymore pieces…

“Lemme get this in the oven,” Bucky told him. “Unless you’re not ready to talk. Or you don’t want to talk. I mean, I get it if you don’t. If you just wanna eat or tell me to fuck off, I understand.”

He wouldn’t like it, but he’d understand. 

“Buck, this is your home too,” Steve told him. “You have the right to exist here.”

“It’s your house, Steve,” Bucky reminded him. 

“I bought it,” Steve agreed. “But it’s ours.”

Warmth spread through Bucky’s chest and down through his limbs. 

“I’m sorry I bailed, Steve,” Bucky said, ziti now forgotten. “I freaked out, and it was stupid and selfish. You were being honest and I blew it.”

Steve looked down at his own hands, pondering what his next move would be.

“Were you being honest?” he asked. 

Bucky let out a breath. “Yeah, Steve. I was. I guess I shoulda told you sooner.”

“I get why you didn’t,” Steve told him. “I don’t think I woulda told me either.”

Bucky bit his lips shut and looked down at the floor. Man, maybe he should’ve swept before he started cooking. 

“I love you, Bucky,” Steve said then, and Bucky’s attention snapped back up. “I know you know that, but. I love you. I can’t see myself loving anyone more than I love you and Robbie.” 

Why did that make Bucky want to cry? 

“And, okay, I’m not so smart when it comes to this kinda thing,” Steve amended, “But you’re too important for me to lose because of this. What I think I probably should’ve said earlier is that I’m serious about this. If we have a romantic sexual relationship, I’m--I wanna try that.” 

Bucky swallowed hard. His jaw started to tremble again, his teeth now chattering together like he’d been locked outside his childhood home in Brooklyn in the middle of a blizzard. His throat was trying to close up again, but Bucky summoned all his strength and powered through it as best he could. 

“I’ve never had a boyfriend or girlfriend,” Bucky told him. “I don’t have a whole lot to go on, here. I sleep with people, but as soon as it gets to hearts and flowers--”

“Gross,” Steve stuck out his tongue.

“Right?” Bucky gestured. “Romance isn’t a forte of mine. It’s not even really a skill I have. And when you say you want that, I just… I don’t wanna fuck it up and ruin anything because I love you too, Steve. And thinking about how wrong it could go scares the shit outta me.” 

He would not cry. He would not cry. 

“Well, I’ve had sex with a grand total of four people,” Steve said. “And apart from Peggy, I don’t think I’m so great at it.” 

Bucky counted in his head, “So, am I number four or five?” 

Steve paused, eyebrows crunched in thought as he searched for the answer. 

“I guess you’re number five,” he concluded. 

“Well, then, for what it’s worth,” Bucky shoved his hands in his sweats pockets. “Number five thinks you did a pretty bang-up job, considering it was also your first time with a guy. Though, in my opinion, it’s all sex regardless of the genitalia you’re working with, so.” 

Silence fell between them for a few long minutes. Bucky knew he had to say it; he just wanted to enjoy these last moments of peace before his life was irreparably altered. 

“I wanna try too,” he said. “I wanna be a dad with you, and I want to go to dinner with you and hug you and kiss you, and all that mushy stuff that I can’t  _ promise _ I’ll be great at, but--”

Steve cut him off by closing the distance between them. Heat radiated off of Steve like a fucking furnace, which should have been a turn-off in the throes of August, but god, Bucky couldn’t help it. He tilted his face and finally-- _ fucking finally _ \--closed his lips over Steve’s. 

God, it was intoxicating. Unlike the previous night’s battle royale, Steve met Bucky softly, like he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing even though last night he very clearly did. Bucky’s hands cupped Steve’s face, desperate to maintain contact when he broke their kiss. 

“That’s… that’s nice,” Bucky murmured before he could think better of it, and Steve hummed in agreement before he broke out into a pure sunshine grin. 

They kissed again, and again, unable to stop now that they’d gotten going. The thirteen year old kid up in Bucky’s brain was doing cartwheels and backflips, elated by the fact that he was making out with Steve Rogers, who himself wanted to be made out with. 

Steve let Bucky take the lead this time, following along until Bucky backed him against the counter and pressed his thigh into Steve’s groin. He was getting a little hard, but not with nearly the same urgency as last night. When Bucky reached down to unbutton his fly, Steve caught him by his wrist. 

Shit. 

“Fuck, I’m--” Steve cut Bucky off with a kiss. 

“Just this,” Steve told him. “For right now. I just wanna do this.” 

By way of demonstration, Steve brought their lips back together. Bucky, in an attempt to compromise, slid his tongue gently over Steve’s lips, prodding in a silent question. Steve’s jaw dropped open and allowed Bucky to deepen their kiss.

And goddamn, was it  _ good. _

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! So, there have been some pretty monumental changes in my life in the last few months. I am going to do my damndest to update this regularly, since I'm finally both in the mood to write and am writing something I like (me? love kidfic? never). I'm excited to share this story with you guys; I've been toying with it for a while.
> 
> Okay everyone, here we go!


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